REVERIES 

.MASTER I 





Class JJ^rZl^ 



Book 



"r^ - 



Copightls^" 



CDFKraGHT DEPOSIT. 



REVERIES OF 
A SCHOOLMASTER 



BY 5 

FRANCIS Bf PEARSON 

STATE 8UPEBINTENDENT OP PUBLIC INSTRUCTION FOB OHIO 

AUTHOB OF " THE EVOLUTION OF THE TEACHEB," " THE HIGH-SCHOOL 

PBOBLEM," "THE VITALIZED SCHOOL" 



CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

NEW YORK CHICAGO BOSTON 



^4 



COPYBIGHT, 1917, BY 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 



MAR 14 1917 




i.oo 






CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. In Medias Res 3 

II. Retrospect 10 

III. Brown 17 

IV. Psychological 23 

V. Balking 31 

VI. Lanterns 37 

VII. Complete Living 44 

VIII. My Speech 51 

IX. School-Teaching 57 

X. Beefsteak 65 

XI. Freedom 72 

XII. Things 78 

XIII. Targets 84 

XIV. Sinners 90 

XV. Hoeing Potatoes 96 

XVI. Changing the Mind 102 

XVII. The Point of View 108 

XVIII. Picnics 114 

iii 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XIX. Make-Believe 120 

XX. Behavior 126 

XXI. Forefingers 132 

XXII. Story-Telling 138 

XXIII. Grandmother 145 

XXIV. My World 151 

XXV. This or That 157 

XXVI. Rabbit Pedagogy 163 

XXVII. Perspective 169 

XXVIII. Purely Pedagogical 177 

XXIX. Longevity 184 

XXX. Four-leaf Clover 191 

XXXI. Mountain-Climbing 198 



IV 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 



-, r 



CHAPTER I 
IN MEDIAS RES 

I AM rather glad now that I took a little dip (one 
could scarce call it a baptism) into the Latin, and 
especially into Horace, for that good soul gave me the 
expression in medias res. That is a forceful expression, 
right to the heart of things, and applies equally well 
to the writing of a composition or the eating of a 
watermelon. Those who have crossed the Channel, 
from Folkstone to Boulogne, know that the stanch 
little ship Invida had scarcely left dock when they 
were in medias res. They were conscious of it, too, if 
indeed they were conscious of anything not strictly 
personal to themselves. This expression admits us at 
once to the light and warmth (if such there be) of the 
inner temple nor keeps us shivering out in the vestibule. 
Writers of biography are wont to keep us waiting 
too long for happenings that are really worth our while. 
They tell us that some one was born at such a time, 
as if that were really important. Why, anybody can be 
bom, but it requires some years to determine whether 
his being born was a matter of importance either to 
3 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

himself or to others. When I write my biographical 
sketch of William Shakespeare I shall say that in a 
certain year he wrote ''Hamlet," which fact clearly 
justified his being born so many years earlier. 

The good old lady said of her pastor: "He enters 
the pulpit, takes his text, and then the dear man just 
goes everywhere preaching the Gospel." That man 
had a special aptitude for the in medias res method of 
procedure. Many children in school who are not 
versed in Latin would be glad to have their teachers 
endowed with this aptitude. They are impatient of 
preliminaries, both in the school and at the dinner- 
table. And it is pretty difficult to discover just where 
childhood leaves off in this respect. 

So I am grateful to Horace for the expression. Hav- 
ing started right in the midst of things, one can never 
get off the subject, and that is a great comfort. Some- 
times college graduates confess (or perhaps boast) that 
they have forgotten their Latin. I fear to follow their 
example lest my neighbor, who often drops in for a 
friendly chat, might get to wondering whether I have 
not also forgotten much of the English I am supposed 
to have acquired in college. He might regard my 
English as quite as feeble when compared with Shake- 
speare or Milton as my Latin when compared with 
Cicero or Virgil. So I take counsel with prudence and 
keep silent on the subject of Latin. 



IN MEDIAS RES 

When I am taking a stroll in the woods, as I delight 
to do in the autumn-time, laundering my soul with 
the gorgeous colors, the music of the rustling leaves, 
the majestic silences, and the sounds that are less and 
more than sounds, I often wonder, when I take one 
bypath, what experiences I might have had if I had 
taken the other. I'll never know, of course, but I 
keep on wondering. So it is with this Latin. I won- 
der how much worse matters could or would have been 
if I had never studied it at all. As the old man said 
to the young fellow who consulted him as to getting 
married: "You'll be sorry if you do, and sorry if you 
don't." I used to feel a sort of pity for my pupils to 
think how they would have had no education at all 
if they had not had me as their teacher; now I am 
beginning to wonder how much further along they 
might have been if they had had some other teacher. 
But probably most of the misfits in life are in the 
imagination, after all. We all think the huckleberries 
are more abundant on the other bush. 

Hoeing potatoes is a calm, serene, dignified, and 
philosophical enterprise. But at bottom it is much 
the same in principle as teaching school. In my 
potato-patch I am merely trying to create situations 
that are favorable to growth, and in the school I can 
do neither more nor better. I cannot cause either 
boys or potatoes to grow. If I could, I'd certainly 
5 



-,/ 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

have the process patented. I know no more about 
how potatoes grow than I do about the fourth dimen- 
sion or the unearned increment. But they grow in 
spite of my ignorance, and I know that there are cer- 
tain conditions in which they flourish. So the best I 
can do is to make conditions favorable. Nor do I 
bother about the weeds. I just centre my attention 
and my hoe upon loosening the soil and let the weeds 
look out for themselves. Hoeing potatoes is a syn- 
thetic process, but cutting weeds is analytic, and syn- 
thesis is better, both for potatoes and for boys. In 
good time, if the boy is kept growing, he will have 
outgrown Ms stone-bruises, his chapped hands, his 
freckles, his warts, and his physical and spiritual awk- 
wardness. The weeds will have disappeared. 

The potato-patch is your true pedagogical laboratory 
and conservatory. If one cannot learn pedagogy there 
it is no fault of the potato-patch. Horace must have 
thought of in medias res while hoeing potatoes. There 
is no other way to do it, and that is bed-rock pedagogy. 
Just to get right at the work and do it, that's the very 
thing the teacher is striving toward. Here among my 
potatoes I am actuated by motives, I invest the sub- 
ject with human interest, I experience motor activities, 
I react, I function, and I go so far as to evaluate. In- 
deed, I run the entire gamut. And then, when I am 
lying beneath the canopy of the wide-spreading tree, 
6 



IN MEDIAS RES 

I do a bit of research work in trying to locate the sorest 
muscle. And, as to efficiency, well, I give myself a 
high grade in that and shall pass cum laude if the mat- 
ter is left to me. If our grading were based upon 
effort rather than achievement, I could bring my ach- 
ing back into court, if not my potatoes. But our 
system of grading in the schools demands potatoes, 
no matter much how obtained, with scant credit for 
backaches. 

We have farm ballads and farm arithmetics, but as 
yet no one has written for us a book on farm pedagogy. 
I'd do it myself but for the feeling that some Strayer, 
or McMurry, or O'Shea will get right at it as soon 
as he has come upon this suggestion. That's my one 
great trouble. The other fellow has the thing done 
before I can get around to it. I would have written 
"The Message to Garcia," but Mr. Hubbard antici- 
pated me. Then, I was just ready to write a luminous 
description of Yellowstone Falls when I happened upon 
the one that DeWitt Talmage wrote, and I could see 
no reason for writing another. So it is. I seem always 
to be just too late. I wish now that I had written 
" Recessional " before Kipling got to it. No doubt, the 
same thing will happen with my farm pedagogy. If 
one could only stake a claim in all this matter of writ- 
ing as they do in the mining regions, the whole thing 
would be simpUfied. I'd stake my claim on farm ped- 
7 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

ngogy and then go on hoeing my potatoes while think- 
ing out what to say on the subject. 

Whoever writes the book will do well to show how 
catching a boy is analogous to catching a colt out in 
the pasture. Both feats require tact and, at the very 
least, horse-sense. The other day I wanted to catch 
my colt and went out to the pasture for that purpose. 
There is a hill in the pasture, and I went to the top of 
this and saw the colt at the far side of the pasture in 
what we call the swale — low, wet ground, where weeds 
abound. I didn't want to get my shoes soiled, so I 
stood on the hill and ctdled and called. The colt 
looked up now and then and then went on with his 
own affairs. In my chagrin I was just about ready to 
get angry when it occurred to me that the colt wasn't 
angry, and that I ought to show as good sense as a 
mere horse. That reflection relieved the tension some- 
what, and I thought it wise to meditate a bit. Here 
am I; yonder is the colt. I want him; he doesn't want 
me. He will not come to me ; so I must go to him. Then, 
what? Oh, yes, native interests — that's it, native in- 
terests. I'm much obliged to Professor James for re- 
minding me. Now, just what are the native interests 
of a colt? Why, oats, of course. So, I must return 
to the barn and get a pail of oats. An empty pail 
might do once, but never again. So I must have oats 
in my pail. Either a colt or a boy becomes shy after 
8 



IN MEDIAS RES 

he has once been deceived. The boy who fails to get 
oats in the classroom to-day, will shy off from the 
teacher to-morrow. He will not even accept her state- 
ment that there is oats in the pail, for yesterday the 
pail was empty — nothing but sound. 

But even with pail and oats I had to go to the colt, 
getting my shoes soiled and my clothes torn, but there 
was no other way. I must begin where the colt (or 
boy) is, as the book on pedagogy says. I wanted to 
stay on the hill where everything was agreeable, but 
that wouldn't get the colt. Now, if Mr. Charles H. 
Judd cares to elaborate this outline, I urge no objec- 
tion and shall not claim the protection of copyright. I 
shall be only too glad to have him make clear to all of 
us the pedagogical recipe for catching colts and boys. 



CHAPTER II 

RETROSPECT 

Tiyf R. PATRICK HENRY was probably correct in 
•*■ -*■ saying that there is no way of judging the future 
but by the past, and, to my thinking, he might well 
have included the present along with the future. To- 
day is better or worse than yesterday or some other 
day in the past, just as this cherry pie is better or 
worse than some past cherry pie. But even this pie 
may seem a bit less glorious than the pies of the past, 
because of my jaded appetite — a fact that is easily lost 
sight of. Folks who extol the glories of the good old 
times may be forgetting that they are not able to relive 
the emotions that put the zest into those past events. 
We used to go to "big meeting" in a two-horse sled, 
with the wagon-body half filled with hay and heaped 
high with blankets and robes. The mercury might be 
low in the tube, but we recked not of that. Our in- 
difference to climatic conditions was not due alone to 
the wealth of robes and blankets, but the proximity 
of another member of the human family may have had 
something to do with it. If we could reconstruct the 
emotional life of those good old times, the physical 
10 



RETROSPECT 

conditions would take their rightful place as a back- 
ground. 

If we could only bring back the appetite of former 
years we might find this pie better than the pies of 
old. The good brother who seems to think the text- 
books of his boyhood days were better than the mod- 
ern ones forgets that along \vith the old-time text- 
books went skating, rabbit-hunting, snowbaUing, 
coasting, fishing, sock-up, bull-pen, two-old-cat, town- 
ball, and shinny-on-the-ice. He is probably confusing 
those majors with the text-book minor. His criticism 
of things and books modem is probably a voicing of 
his regret that he has lost his zeal for the fun and 
frolic of youth. If he could but drink a few copious 
drafts from the Fountain of Youth, the books of the 
present might not seem so inferior after all. The 
bread and apple-butter stage of our hero's career may 
seem to dim the lustre of the later porterhouse steak, 
but with all the glory of the halcyon days of yore it is 
to be noted that he rides in an automobile and not in 
an ox-cart, and prefers electricity to the good old oil- 
lamp. 

I concede with enthusiasm the joys of bygone days, 
and would be glad to repeat those experiences \vith 
sundry very specific reservations and exceptions. That 
thick bread with its generous anointing of apple butter 
discounted all the nectar and ambrosia of the books 
11 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

and left its marks upon the character as well as the 
features of the recipient. The mouth waters even now 
as I recall the bill of fare plus the appetite. But if I 
were going back to the good old days I'd like to take 
some of the modern improvements along with me. It 
thrills me to consider the modern school credits for 
home work with all the "57 varieties" as an integral 
feature of the good old days. Alas, how much we 
missed by not knowing about all this ! What miracles 
might have been wrought had we and our teachers 
only known! Poor, ignorant teachers! Little did 
they dream that such wondrous things could ever be. 
Life might have been made a glad, sweet song for us 
had it been supplied with these modern attachments. 
I spent many weary hours over partial payments in 
Ray's Third Part, when I might have been brushing 
my teeth or combing my hair instead. Then, instead 
of threading the mazes of Greene's Analysis and pars- 
ing "Thanatopsis," I might just as well have been 
asleep in the haymow, where ventilation was super- 
abundant. How proudly could I have produced the 
home certificate as to my haymow experience and re- 
ceived an exhilarating grade in grammar ! 

Just here I interrupt myself to let the imagination 

follow me homeward on the days when grades were 

issued. The triumphal processions of the Romans 

would have been mild by comparison. The arch look 

12 



RETROSPECT 

upon my face, the martial mien, and the flashing eye 
all betoken the real hero. Then the pride of that 
home, the sumptuous feast of chicken and angel-food 
cake, and the parental acclaim — all befitting the 
stanch upholder of the family honor. Of course, 
nothing hke this ever really happened, which goes to 
prove that I was born years too early in the world's 
history. The more I think of this the more acute is 
my sympathy with Maud Muller. That girl and I 
could sigh a duet thinking what might have been. 
Why, I might have had my college degree while still 
wearing short trousers. I was something of an adept 
at milking cows and could soon have eliminated the 
entire algebra by the method of substitution. Milking 
the cows was one of my regular tasks, anyhow, and I 
could thus have combined business with pleasure. 
And if by riding a horse to water I could have gained 
immunity from the Commentaries by one Julius Caesar, 
full lustily would I have shouted, a la Richard III: "A 
horse ! A horse ! My kingdom for a horse ! " 

One man advocates the plan of promoting pupils in 
the schools on the basis of character, and this plan 
strongly appeals to me as right, plausible, and alto- 
gether feasible. Had this been proposed when I was 
a schoolboy I probably should have made a few con- 
ditions, or at least have asked a few questions. I 
should certainly have wanted to know who was to be 
13 



u 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

the judge in the matter, and what was his definition 
of character. Much would have depended upon that. 
If he had decreed that cruelty to animals indicates a 
lack of character and then proceeded to denominate 
as cruelty to animals such innocent diversions as shoot- 
ing woodpeckers in a cherry-tree with a Flobert rifle, 
or smoking chipmunks out from a hollow log, or tying 
a strip of red flannel to a hen's tail to take her mind 
off the task of trying to hatch a door-knob, or tying a 
tin can to a dog's tail to encourage him in his laudable 
enterprise of demonstrating the principle of uniformly 
accelerated motion — if he had included these and other 
such like harmless antidotes for ennui in his category, 
I should certainly have asked to be excused from his 
character curriculum and should have pursued the 
even tenor of my ways, splitting kindling, currying the 
horse, washing the buggy, carrying water from the 
pump to the kitchen and saying, "Thank you," to my 
elders as the more agreeable avenue of promotion. 

If we had had character credits in the good old days 
I might have won distinction in school and been saved 
much embarrassment in later years. Instead of learn- 
ing the latitude and longitude of Madagascar, Chatta- 
hoochee, and Kamchatka, I might have received high 
grades in geography by abstaining from the chewing of 
gum, by not wearing my hands in my trousers-pock- 
ets, by walking instead of ambling or slouching, by 
14 



RETROSPECT 

wiping the mud from my shoes before entering the 
house, by a personally conducted tour through the 
realms of manicuring, and by learning the position and 
use of the hat-rack. Getting no school credits for such 
incidental minors in the great scheme of life, I grew 
careless and indifferent and acquired a reputation that 
I do not care to dwell upon. If those who had me in 
charge, or thought they had, had only been wise and 
given me school credits for all these things, what a 
model boy I might have been ! 

Why, I would have swallowed my pride, donned a 
kitchen apron, and washed the supper dishes, and no 
normal boy enjoys that ceremony. By making passes 
over the dishes I should have been exorcising the spooks 
of cube root, and that would have been worth some 
personal sacrifice. What a boon it would have been 
for the home folks too! They could have indulged 
their penchant for literary exercises, sitting in the 
parlor making out certificates for me to carry to my 
teacher next day, and so all the rough places in the 
home would have been made smooth. But the crown- 
ing achievement would have been my graduation from 
college. I can see the picture. I am husking corn 
in the lower field. To reach this field one must go the 
length of the orchard and then walk across the meadow. 
It is a crisp autumn day, about ten o'clock in the 
morning, and the sun is shining. The golden ears are 
15 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

piling up under my magic skill, and there is peace. As 
I take down another bundle from the shock I descry 
what seems to be a sort of procession wending its way 
through the orchard. Then the rail fence is sur- 
mounted, and the procession solemnly moves across 
the meadow. In time the president and an assort- 
ment of faculty members stand before me, bedight in 
caps and gowns. I note that their gowns are liberally 
garnished with Spanish needles and cockleburs, and 
their shoes give evidence of contact with elemental 
mud. But then and there they confer upon me the 
degree of bachelor of arts magna cum laudc. But for 
this interruption I could have finished husking that 
row before the dinner-horn blew. 



16 



CHAPTER III 
BROWN 

MY neighbor came in again this evening, not for 
anything in particular, but unconsciously prov- 
ing that men are gregarious animals. I like this neigh- 
bor. His name is Brown. I like the name Brown, 
too. It is easy to pronounce. By a gentle crescendo 
you go to the summit and then coast to the bottom. 
The name Brown, when pronounced, is a circumflex 
accent. Now, if his name had happened to be Mori- 
arity I never could be quite sure when I came to the 
end in pronouncing it. I'm glad his name is not 
Moriarity — not because it is Irish, for I like the Irish; 
so does Brown, for he is married to one of them. Any 
one who has been in Cork and heard the fine old Irish- 
man say in his musical and inimitable voice, *"Tis a 
lovely dye," such a one wall ever after have a snug 
place in his affections for the Irish, whether he has 
kissed the "Blarney stone" or not. If he has heard 
this same driver of a jaunting-car rhapsodize about 
"Shandon Bells" and the author. Father Prout, his 
admiration for things and people Irish will become 
well-nigh a passion. He will not need to add to his 
17 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

mental picture, for the sake of emphasis or color, the 
cherry-cheeked maids who lead their mites of donkeys 
along leafy roads, the carts heaped high with cab- 
bages. Even without this addition he will become 
expansive when he speaks of Ireland and the Irish. 

But, as I was saying. Brown came in this evening 
just to barter small talk, as we often do. Now, in 
physical build Brown is somewhere between Falstaff 
and Cassius, while in mental qualities he is an admix- 
ture of Plato, Solomon, and Bill Nye. 

When he drops in we do not discuss matters, nor 
even converse; we talk. Our talk just oozes out and 
flows whither it wills, or little wisps of talk drift into 
the silences, and now and then a dash of homely phi- 
losophy splashes into the talking. Brown is a real 
comfort. He is never cryptic, nor enigmatic, at least 
consciously so, nor does he ever try to be impressive. 
If he were a teacher he would attract his pupils by 
his good sense, his sincerity, his simplicity, and his 
freedom from pose. I cannot think of him as ever 
becoming teachery, with a high-pitched voice and a 
hysteric manner. He has too much poise for that. 
He would never discuss things with children. He 
would talk with them. Brown cannot walk on stilts, 
nor has the air-ship the least fascination for him. 

One of my teachers for a time was Doctor T. C. Men- 
denhall, and he was a great teacher. He could sound 
18 



BROWN 

the very depths of his subject and simply talk it. He 
led us to think, and thinking is not a noisy process. 
Truth to tell, his talks often caused my poor head to 
ache from overwork. But I have been in classes where 
the oases of thought were far apart and one could 
doze and dream on the journey from one to the other. 
Doctor Mendenhall's teaching was all white meat, sweet 
to the taste, and altogether nourishing. He is the 
man who made the first correct copy of Shakespeare's 
epitaph there in the church at Stratford-on-Avon. I 
sent a copy of Doctor Mendenhall's version to Mr. 
Brassinger, the librarian in the Memorial Building, 
and have often wondered what his comment was. He 
never told me. There are those "who, having eyes, 
see not." There had been thousands of people who 
had looked at that epitaph with the printed copy in 
hand, and yet had never noticed the discrepancy, and 
it remained for an American to point out the mistake. 
But that is Doctor Mendenhall's way. He is nothing 
if not thorough, and that proves his scientific mind. 

Well, Brown fell to talking about the Isle of Pines, 
in the course of our verbal exchanges, and I drew him 
out a bit, receiving a hberal education on the subjects 
of grapefruit, pineapples, and bananas. From my 
school-days I have carried over the notion that the 
Caribbean Sea is one of the many geographical myths 
with which the school-teacher is wont to intimidate 
19 



L 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

boys who would far rather be scaring rabbits out from 
under a brush heap. But here sits a man who has 
travelled upon the Caribbean Sea, and therefore there 
must be such a place. Our youthful fancies do get 
severe jolts! From my own experience I infer that 
much of our teaching in the schools doesn't take hold, 
that the boys and girls tolerate it but do not believe. 
I cannot recall just when I first began to believe in 
Mt. Vesuvius, but I am quite certain that it was not 
in my school-days. It may have been in my teaching- 
days, but Fm not quite certain. I have often won- 
dered whether we teachers really believe all we try to 
teach. I feel a pity for poor Sisyphus, poor fellow, 
rolling that stone to the top of the hill, and then hav- 
ing to do the work all over when the stone rolled to 
the bottom. But that is not much worse than trying 
to teach Caribbean Sea and Mt. Vesuvius, if we can't 
really believe in them. But here is Brown, metamor- 
phosed into a psychologist who begins with the known, 
yea, delightfully known grapefruit which I had at 
breakfast, and takes me on a fascinating excursion till 
I arrive, by alluring stages, at the related unknown, 
the Caribbean Sea. Too bad that Brown isn't a 
teacher. 

Brown has the gift of holding on to a thing till his 
craving for knowledge is satisfied. Somewhere he had 
come upon some question touching a campanile or, 
20 



BROWN 

possibly, the Campanile, as it seemed to him. Nor 
would he rest content until I had extracted what the 
books have to say on the subject. He had in mind the 
Campanile at Venice, not knowing that the one beside 
the Duomo at Florence is higher than the one at 
Venice, and that the Leaning Tower at Pisa is a cam- 
panile, or bell- tower, also. When I told him that one 
of my friends saw the Campanile at Venice crumble 
to a heap of ruins on that Sunday morning back in 
1907, and that another friend had been of the last 
party to go to the top of it the evening before, he 
became quite excited, and then I knew that I had suc- 
ceeded in investing the subject with human interest, 
and I felt quite the schoolmaster. Nothing of this 
did I mention to Brown, for there is no need to exploit 
the mental machinery if only you get results. 

Many people who travel abroad buy post-cards by 
the score, and seem to feel that they are the original 
discoverers of the places which these cards portray, 
and yet these very places were the background of 
much of their history and geography in the schools. 
Can it be that their teachers failed to invest these 
places with human interest, that they were but words 
in a book and not real to them at all? Must I travel 
all the way to Yellowstone Park to know a geyser? 
Alas! in that case, many of us poor school-teachers 
must go through life geyserless. Wondrous tales and 
21 



i^- 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

oft heard I in my school-days of glacier, iceberg, can- 
yon, snow-covered mountain, grotto, causeway, and 
volcano, but not till I came to Grindelwald did I 
really know what a glacier is. There's many a Doubt- 
ing Thomas in the schools. 



22 



CHAPTER IV 
PSYCHOLOGICAL 

THE psychologist is so insistent in proclaiming his 
doctrine of negative self-feeling and positive self- 
feeling that one is impelled to listen out of curiosity, if 
nothing else. Then, just as you are beginning to get a 
little glimmering as to his meaning, another one begins 
to assail your ears with a deal of sesquipedalian Eng- 
lish about the emotion of subjection and the emotion 
of elation. Just as I began to think I was getting a 
grip of the thing a college chap came in and proceeded 
to enUghten me by saying that these two emotions 
may be generated only by personal relations, and not 
by relations of persons and things. I was thinking of 
my emotion of subjection in the presence of an origi- 
nal problem in geometry, but this college person tells 
me that this negative self-feeling, according to psy- 
chology, is experienced only in the presence of another 
person. Well, I have had that experience, too. In 
fact, my negative self-feeling is of frequent occurrence. 
Jacob must have had a rather severe attack of the 
emotion of subjection when he was trying to escape 
from the wrath of Esau. But, after his experience at 
23 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

Bethel, where he received a blessing and a promise, 
there was a shifting from the negative self-feeling to 
the positive — from the emotion of subjection to that 
of elation. 

The stone which Jacob used that night as a pillow, 
so we are told, is called the Stone of Scone, and is to 
be seen in the body of the Coronation Chair in West- 
minster Abbey. The use of that stone as a part of 
the chair might seem to be a psychological coincidence, 
unless, indeed, we can conceive that the fabricators of 
the chair combined a knowledge of psychology and also 
of the Bible in its construction. It is an interesting 
conceit, at any rate, that the stone might bring to 
kings and queens a blessing and a promise, as it had 
done for Jacob, averting the emotion of subjection and 
perpetuating the emotion of elation. 

Now, there's Hazzard, the big, glorious Hazzard. I 
met him first on the deck of the S. S. Campania, and I 
gladly agreed to his proposal that we travel together. 
He is a large man (one need not be more specific) and 
a veritable steam-engine of activity and energy. It 
was altogether natural, therefore, that he should 
assume the leadership of our party of two in all mat- 
ters touching places, modes of travel, hotels, and 
other details large and small, while I trailed along in 
his wake. This order continued for some days, and I, 
of course, experienced all the while the emotion of 
24 



PSYCHOLOGICAL 

subjection in some degree. When we came to the 
Isle of Man we puzzled our heads no little over the 
curious coat of arms of that quaint little country. 
This coat of arms is three human legs, equidistant 
from one another. At Peel we made numerous in- 
quiries, and also at Ramsey, but to no avail. In the 
evening, however, in the hotel at Douglas I saw a 
picture of this coat of arms, accompanied by the in- 
scription, Quocumque jeceris stabit, and gave some sort 
of translation of it. Then and there came my emanci- 
pation, for after that I was consulted and deferred to 
during all the weeks we were together. It is quite 
improbable that Hazzard himself realized any change 
in our relations, but unconsciously paid that subtle 
tribute to my small knowledge of Latin. When we 
came to Stratford I did not call upon Miss Marie 
Corelli, for I had heard that she is quite averse to 
men as a class, and I feared I might suffer an emo- 
tional collapse. I was so comfortable in my newly 
acquainted emotion of elation that I decided to run 
no risks. 

When at length I resumed my schoolmastering I 
determined to give the boys and girls the benefit of 
my recent discovery. I saw that I must generate in 
each one, if possible, the emotion of elation, that I 
must so arrange school situations that mastery would 
become a habit with them if they were to become 
25 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

"masters in the kingdom of life," as my friend Long 
says it. I saw at once that the difficulties must be 
made only high enough to incite them to effort, but 
not so high as to cause discouragement. I recalled the 
sentence in Harvey's Grammar: *'Milo began to lift 
the ox when he was a calf." After we had succeeded 
in locating the antecedent of "he" we learned from 
this sentence a lesson of value, and I recalled this les- 
son in my efforts to inculcate progressive mastery in 
the boys and girls of my school. I sometimes deferred 
a difficult problem for a few days till they had lifted 
the growing calf a few more times, and then returned 
to it. Some one says that everything is infinitely high 
that we can't see over, so I was careful to arrange the 
barriers just a bit lower than the eye-line of my pupils, 
and then raise them a trifle on each succeeding day. 
In this way I strove to generate the positive self -feeling 
so that there should be no depression and no white 
flag. And that surely was worth a trip to the Isle of 
I\Ian, even if one failed to see one of their tailless cats. 
I had occasion or, rather, I took occasion at one 
time to punish a boy with a fair degree of severity 
(may the Lord forgive me), and now I know that in 
so doing I was guilty of a grave error. What I inter- 
preted as misconduct was but a straining at his leash 
in an effort to extricate himself from the incubus of 
the negative self-feehng. He was, and probably is, a 
26 



PSYCHOLOGICAL 

dull fellow and realized that he could not cope with 
the other boys in the school studies, and so was but 
trying to win some notice in other fields of activity. 
To him notoriety was preferable to obscurity. If I 
had only been wise I would have turned his incUnation 
to good account and might have helped him to self- 
mastery, if not to the mastery of algebra. He yearned 
for the emotion of elation, and I was trying to per- 
petuate his emotion of subjection. If Methuselah had 
been a schoolmaster he might have attained proficiency 
by the time he reached the age of nine hundred and 
sixty-eight years if he had been a close observer, a 
close student of methods, and had been willing and 
able to profit by his own mistakes. 

Friend Virgil says something like this: "They can 
because they think they can," and I heartily concur. 
Some one tells us that Kent in "King Lear" got his 
name from the Anglo-Saxon word can and he was 
aptly named, in view of Virgil's statement. But can I 
cause my boys and girls to think they can? Why, 
most assuredly, if I am any sort of teacher. Other- 
wise I ought to be dealing with inanimate things and 
leave the school work to those who can. I certainly 
can help young folks to shift from the emotion of sub- 
jection to the emotion of elation. I had a puppy that 
we called Nick and thought I'd like to teach him to go 
up-stairs. When he came to the first stair he cried 
27 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

and cowered and said, in his language, that it was too 
high and that he could never do it. So, in a soothing 
way, I quoted Virgil at him and placed his front paws 
upon the step. Then he laughed a bit and said the 
step wasn't as high as the moon, after all. So I patted 
him and called him a brave Httle chap, and he gained 
the higher level. Then we rested for a bit and spent 
the time in being glad, for Nick and I had read our 
"PoUyanna" and had learned the trick of gladness. 
Well, before the day was over that puppy could go up 
the stairs without the aid of a teacher, and a gladder 
dog never was. If I had taken as much pains with 
that boy as I did with Nick I'd feel far more comfort- 
able right now, and the boy would have felt more 
comfortable both then and after. schoolmastering ! 
How many sins are committed in thy name! I suc- 
ceeded with the puppy, but failed with the boy. A 
boy does not go to school to study algebra, but studies 
algebra to learn mastery. I know this now, but did 
not know it then, more's the pity ! 

I had another valuable lesson in this phase of ped- 
agogy the day my friend Vance and I sojourned to 
Indianapolis to call upon Mr. Benjamin Harrison, 
who had somewhat recently completed his term as 
President of the United States. We were fortified 
with ample and satisfactory credentials and had a 
very fortunate introduction; but for all that we were 
28 



PSYCHOLOGICAL 

inclined to walk softly into the presence of greatness, 
and had a somewhat acute attack of negative self- 
feeling. However, after due exchange of civilities, we 
succeeded somehow in preferring the request that had 
brought us into his presence, and Mr. Harrison's reply 
served to reassure us. Said he: "Oh, no, boys, I 
couldn't do that; last year I promised Bok to write 
some articles for his journal, and I didn't have any 
fun all summer." His two words, *'boys" and "fun," 
were the magic ones that caused the tension to relax 
and generated the emotion of elation. We then sat 
back in our chairs and, possibly, crossed our legs — I 
can't be certain as to that. At any rate, in a single 
sentence this man had made us his co-ordinates and 
caused the negative self-feeling to vanish. Then for 
a good half-hour he talked in a familiar way about 
great affairs, and in a style that charmed. He told 
us of a call he had the day before from David Starr 
Jordan, who came to report his experience as a mem- 
ber of the commission that had been appointed to ad- 
judicate the controversy between the United States 
and England touching seal-fishing in the Behring Sea. 
It may be recalled that this commission consisted of 
two Americans, two Englishmen, and King Oscar of 
Sweden. Mr. Harrison told us quite frankly that he 
felt a mistake had been made in making up the com- 
mission, for, with two Americans and two Englishmen 
29 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

on the commission, the sole arbiter in reality was King 
Oscar, since the other four were reduced to the plane 
of mere advocates; but, had there been three Ameri- 
cans and two Englishmen, or two Americans and 
three Englishmen, the function of all would have been 
clearly judicial. Suffice it to say that this great man 
made us forget our emotion of subjection, and so 
made us feel that he would have been a great teacher, 
just as he was a great statesman. I shall always be 
grateful for the lesson he taught me and, besides, I 
am glad that the college chap came in and gave me 
that psychological massage. 



30 



CHAPTER V 
BALKING 

WHEN I write my book on farm pedagogy I shall 
certainly make large use of the horse in illus- 
trating the fundamental principles, for he is a noble 
animal and altogether worthy of the fullest recogni- 
tion. We often use the expression "horse-sense" 
somewhat flippantly, but I have often seen a driver 
who would have been a more useful member of society 
if he had had as much sense as the horses he was 
driving. If I were making a catalogue of the "lower 
animals" Fd certainly include the man who abuses 
a horse. Why, the celebrated German trick-horse, 
Hans, had even the psychologists baffled for a long 
time, but finally he taught them a big chapter in psy- 
chology. They finally discovered that his marvellous 
tricks were accomplished through the power of close 
observation. Facial expression, twitching of a muscle, 
movements of the head, these were the things he 
watched for as his cue in answering questions by in- 
dicating the right card. There was a teacher in our 
school once who wore old-fashioned spectacles. When 
he wanted us to answer a question in a certain way 
31 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

he unconsciously looked over his spectacles; but when 
he wanted a different answer he raised his spectacles 
to his forehead. So we ranked high in our daily 
grades, but met our Waterloo when the examination 
came around. That teacher, of course, had never 
heard of the horse Hans, and so was not aware that 
in the process of watching his movements we were 
merely proving that we had horse-sense. He probably 
attributed our ready answers to the superiority of his 
teaching, not reaUzing that our minds were concen- 
trated upon the subject of spectacles. 

Of course, a horse balks now and then, and so does 
a boy. I did a bit of balking myself as a boy, and I 
am not quite certain that I have even yet become im- 
mune. Doctor James Wallace (whose edition of "Anab- 
asis" some of us have read, halting and stumbHng 
along through the parasangs) with three companions 
went out to Marathon one da}' from Athens. The 
distance, as I recall it, is about twenty-two miles, and 
the}' left early in the morning, so as to return the 
same day. Their conveyance was an open wagon with 
two horses attached. "WTien they had gone a mile or 
two out of town one of the horses balked and refused 
to proceed. Then and there each member of the party 
drew upon liis past experiences, seeking a panacea for 
the equine delinquency. One suggested the plan of 
building a fire under the recalcitrant horse, while an- 
32 



BALKING 

other suggested pouring sand into his ears. Doctor 
Wallace discouraged these remedies as being cruel and 
finally told the others to take their places in the wagon 
and he would try the merits of a plan he had in mind. 
Accordingly, when they were seated, he clambered 
over the dash, walked along the wagon-pole, and sud- 
denly plumped himself down upon the horse's back. 
Then away they went, John Gilpin like, Doctor Wal- 
lace's coat-tails and hair streaming out behind. 

There was no more balking in the course of the trip, 
and no one (save, possibly, the horse) had any twinges 
of conscience to keep him awake that night. The in- 
cident is brimful of pedagogy in that it shows that, 
in order to cure a horse of an attack of balking, you 
have but to distract his mind from his balking and 
get him to thinking of something else. Before this 
occurrence taught me the better way, I was quite 
prone, in dealing with a balking boy, to hold his mind 
upon the subject of balking. I told him how un- 
seemly it was, how humiliated his father and mother 
would be, how he could not grow up to be a useful 
citizen if he yielded to such tantrums; in short, I ran 
the gamut of all the pedagogical bromides, and so 
kept his mind centred upon balking. Now that I 
have learned better, I strive to divert his mind to 
something else, and may ask him to go upon some 
pleasant errand that he may gain some new experi- 
33 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

ences. When he returns he has forgotten that he was 
balking and recounts his experiences most dehghtfully. 

Ed was one of the balkiest boys I ever had in my 
school. His attacks would often last for days, and 
the more attention you paid to him the worse he 
balked. In the midst of one of these violent and pro- 
longed attacks a lady came to school who, in the kind- 
ness of her generous nature, was proposing to give a 
boy Joe (now a city alderman) a Christmas present 
of a new hat. She came to invoke my aid in trjdng 
to discover the size of Joe's head. I readily under- 
took the task, w^hich loomed larger and larger as I 
came fully to realize that I was the sole member of 
the committee of ways and means. In my dire per- 
plexity I saw Ed grouching along the hall. Calling 
him to one side, I explained to the last detail the whole 
case, and confessed that I did not know how to pro- 
ceed. At once his face brightened, and he readily 
agreed to make the discovery for me; and in half an 
hour I had the information I needed and Ed's face 
was luminous. Yes, Joe got the hat and Ed quit 
balking. If Doctor Wallace had not gone to Mara- 
thon that day I can scarcely imagine what might have 
happened to Ed; and Joe might not have received a 
new hat. 

I have often wondered whether a horse has a sense 
of humor. I know a boy has, and I very strongly 
34 



BALKING 

suspect that the horse has. It was one of my tasks 
in boyhood to take the horses down to the creek for 
water. Among others we had a roan two-year-old 
colt that we called Dick, and even yet I think of him 
as quite capable of laughter at some of his own mis- 
chievous pranks. One day I took him to water, dis- 
pensing with the formalities of a bridle, and riding 
him down through the orchard with no other habili- 
ments than a rope halter. In the orchard were several 
trees of the bellflower variety, whose branches sagged 
near to the ground. Dick was going along very deco- 
rously and sedately, as if he were studying the golden 
text or something equally absorbing, when, all at once, 
some spirit of mischief seemed to possess liim and 
away he bolted, willy-nilly, right under the low-hang- 
ing branches of one of those trees. Of course, I was 
raked fore and aft, and, while I did not imitate the 
example of Absalom, I afforded a fairly good imita- 
tion, with the difference that, through many trials and 
tribulations, I finally reached the ground. Needless to 
say that I was a good deal of a wreck, with my cloth- 
ing much torn and my hands and face not only much 
torn but also bleeding. After relieving himself of his 
burden, Dick meandered on down to the creek in 
leisurely fashion, where I came upon him in due time 
enjoying a lunch of grass. 
Walking toward the creek, sore in body and spirit, 
35 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

I fully made up my mind to have a talk with that colt 
that he would not soon forget. He had put shame 
upon me, and I determined to tell him so. But when 
I came upon him looking so lamblike in his innocence, 
and when I imagined that I heard him chuckle at my 
plight, my resolution evaporated, and I realized that 
in a trial of wits he had got the better of me. More- 
over, I conceded right there that he had a right to 
laugh, and especially when he saw me so superlatively 
scrambled. He had beaten me on my own ground 
and convicted me of knowing less than a horse, so I 
could but yield the palm to him with what grace I 
could command. Many a time since that day have 
I been unhorsed, and by a mere boy who laughed at 
my discomfiture. But I learned my lesson from Dick 
and have always tried, though grimly, to applaud the 
victor in the tournament of wits. Only so could I 
hold the respect of the boy, not to mention my own. 
If a boy sets a trap for me and I walk into it, well, if 
he doesn't laugh at me he isn't much of a boy; and if 
I can't laugh with him I am not much of a school- 
master. 



36 



CHAPTER VI 
LANTERNS 

I MAY be mistaken, but my impression is that 
"The Light of the World," by Holman Hunt, is 
the only celebrated picture in the world of which there 
are two originals. One of these may be seen at Ox- 
ford and the other in St. Paul's, London. Neither is 
a copy of the other, and yet they are both alike, so 
far as one may judge without having them side by 
side. The picture represents Christ standing at a 
door knocking, with a lantern in one hand from which 
light is streaming. When I think of a lantern the 
mind instantly flashes to this picture, to Diogenes 
and his lantern, and to the old tin lantern with its 
perforated cylinder which I used to carry out to the 
barn to arrange the bed-chambers for the horses. All 
my life have I been hearing folks speak of the asso- 
ciation of ideas as if one idea could conjure up innu- 
merable others. The lantern that I carried to the 
barn never could have been associated with Diogenes 
if I had not read of the philosopher, nor with the pic- 
ture at Oxford if I had never seen or heard of it. In 
order that we have association of ideas, we must first 
have the ideas, according to my way of thinking. 
37 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

Thus it chanced that when I came upon some refer- 
ence to Holman Hunt and his great masterpiece, my 
mind glanced over to the cjTiical philosopher and his 
lantern. The more I ponder over that lantern the 
more puzzled I become as to its real significance. The 
popular notion is that it is meant to show how difficult 
it was in his day to find an honest man. But popular 
conceptions are sometimes superficial ones, and if 
Diogenes was the philosopher we take him to have 
been there must have been more to that lantern than 
the mere eccentricity of the man who carried it. If 
we could go back of the lantern we might find the 
cynic's definition of honesty, and that would be worth 
knowing. Back home we used to say that an honest 
man is one who pays his debts and has due respect 
for property rights. Perhaps Diogenes had gone more 
deeply into the matter of paying debts as a mark of 
honesty than those who go no further in their think- 
ing than the grocer, the butcher, and the tax-man. 

This all tends to set me thinking of my own debts 
and the possibility of full payment. I'm just a school- 
master and people rather expect me to be somewhat 
visionary or even fantastic in my notions. But, with 
due allowance for my vagaries, I cannot rid myself of 
the feeling that I am deeply in debt to somebody for 
the Venus de Milo. She has the reputation of being 
the very acme of sculpture, and certainly the Parisians 
38 



LANTERNS 

so regard her or they would not pay her such a high 
tribute in the way of space and position. She is the 
focus of that whole wonderful gallery. No one has 
ever had the boldness to give her a place in the market 
quotations, but I can regale myself with her beauty 
for a mere pittance. This pittance does not at all 
cancel my indebtedness, and I come away feeling that 
I still owe something to somebody, without in the 
least knowing who it is or how I am to pay. I can't 
even have the poor satisfaction of making proper ac- 
knowledgment to the sculptor. 

I can acknowledge my obligation to Michael Angelo 
for the Sistine ceiling, but that doesn't cancel my 
indebtedness by any means. It took me fifteen years 
to find the Cumsean Sibyl. I had seen a reproduction 
of this lady in some book, and had become much in- 
terested m her generous physique, her brawny arms, 
her wide-spreading toes, and her look of concentration 
as she delves into the mysteries of the massive volume 
before her. Naturally I became curious as to the 
original, and wondered if I should ever meet her face 
to face. Then one day I was lying on my back on a 
wooden bench in the Sistine Chapel, having duly apol- 
ogized for my violation of the conventions, when, 
wonder of wonders, there was the Cumsean Sibyl in 
full glory right before my eyes, and the quest of all 
those years was ended in triumph. True, the Sibyl 
39 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

does not compare in greatness wath the ''Creation of 
Adam" in one of the central panels, but for all that 
I was glad to have her definitely localized. 

I have never got it clearly figured out just how the 
letters of the alphabet were evolved, nor who did the 
work, but I go right on using them as if I had evolved 
them myself. They seem to be my own personal prop- 
erty, and I jostle them about quite careless of the fact 
that some one gave them to me. I can't see how I 
could get on without them, and yet I have never ad- 
mitted any obligation to their author. The same is 
true of the digits. I make constant use of them, and 
sometimes even abuse them, as if I had a clear title 
to them. I have often wondered who worked out the 
table of logarithms, and have thought how much more 
agreeable life has been for many people because of his 
work. I know my own debt to him is large, and I 
dare say many others have a like feeling. Even the 
eighth-grade bo5^s in the Castle Road school, London, 
share this feeling, doubtless, for in a test in arithmetic 
that I saw there I noted that in four of the twelve 
problems set for solution they had permission to use 
their table of logarithms. They probably got home 
earlier for supper by their use of this table. 

I hereby make my humble apologies to Mr. Thomas 
A. Edison for my thoughtlessness in not writing to 
him before this to thank him for his many acts of 
40 



LANTERNS 

kindness to me. I have been exceedingly careless in 
the matter. I owe him for the comfort and conveni- 
ence of this beautiful electric light, and yet have never 
mentioned the matter to him. He has a right to think 
me an ingrate. I have been so busy enjoying the 
gifts he has sent me that I have been negligent of the 
giver. As I think of all my debts to scientists, in- 
ventors, artists, poets, and statesmen, and consider 
how impossible it is for me to pay all my debts to all 
these, try as I may, I begin to see how difficult it was 
for Diogenes to find a man who paid all his debts in 
full. Hence, the lantern. 

It seems to me that, of the varieties of late potatoes 
the Carmen is the premier. Part of the charm of 
hoeing potatoes lies in anticipating the joys of the 
potato properly baked. Charles Lamb may write of 
his roast pig, and the epicures among the ancients 
may expatiate upon the glories of a dish of peacock's 
tongues and their other rare and costly edibles, but 
they probably never knew to what heights one may 
ascend in the scale of gastronomic joys in the imme- 
diate presence of a baked Carmen. When it is broken 
open the steam ascends like incense from an altar, 
while at the magic touch the snowy, flaky substance 
billows forth upon the plate in a drift that would 
inspire the pen of a poet. The further preliminaries 
amount to a ceremony. There can be, there must be 
41 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

no haste. The whole summer Ues back of this mo- 
ment. There on the plate are weeks of golden sun- 
shine, interwoven ^^'ith the singing of birds and the 
fragrance of flowers; and it were sacrilege to become 
hurried at the consummation. When the meat has 
been made fine the salt and pepper are apphed, delib- 
erately, daintily, and then comes the butter, like the 
golden glow of sunset upon a bank of flaky clouds. 
The artist tries in vain to rival this blending of colors 
and shades. But the supreme moment and the climax 
come when the feast is glorified and set apart by its 
baptism of cream. At such a moment the sense of 
my indebtedness to the man who developed the Car- 
men becomes most acute. If the leaders of contend- 
ing armies could sit together at this table and join in 
this gracious ceremony, their rancor and enmity would 
cease, the protocol would be signed, and there w^ould 
ensue a proclamation of peace. Then the whole world 
would recognize its debt to the man who produced 
this potato. 

Having eaten the peace-producing potato, I feel 
strengthened to make another trial at an interpreta- 
tion of that lantern. I do not know whether Diogenes 
had any acquaintance "u-ith the Decalogue, but have 
my doubts. In fact, historj^ gives us too few data 
concerning his attainments for a clear exposition of 
his character. But one may hazard a guess that he 
42 



LANTERNS 
was looking for a man who would not steal, but could 
not find him. In a sense that was a high comphment 
to the people of his day, for there is a sort of stealing 
that takes rank among the fine arts. In fact, stealing 
is the greatest subject that is taught in the school. I 
cannot recall a teacher who did not encourage me to 
strive for mastery in this art. Every one of them ap- 
plauded my every success in this line. One of my 
early triumphs was reciting ''Horatius at the Bridge," 
and my teacher almost smothered me with praise. I 
simply took what Macaulay had written and made it 
my own. I had some difficulty in making off with 
the conjugation of the Greek verb, but the more I 
took of it the more my teacher seemed pleased. All 
along the line I have been encouraged to appropriate 
what others have produced and to take joy in my 
pilfering. Mr. Carnegie has lent his sanction to this 
sort of thing by fostering Hbraries. Shakespeare was 
arrested for steahng a deer, but extolled for stealing 
the plots of "Romeo and Juliet," "Comedy of Errors," 
and others of his plays. It seems quite all right to 
steal ideas, or even thoughts, and this may account 
again for the old man's lantern. But, even so, it would 
seem quite iconoclastic to say that education is the 
process of reminding people of their debts and of 
training them to steal. 



43 



CHAPTER VII 
COMPLETE LIVING 

IN my quiet way I have been making inquiries 
among my acquaintances for a long time, trying 
to find out what education really is. As a school- 
master I must try to make it appear that I know. In 
fact, I am quite a Sir Oracle on the subject of educa- 
tion in my school. But, in the quiet of my den, after 
the day's work is done, I often long for some one to 
come in and tell me just what it is. I am fairly con- 
versant with the multiplication table and can distin- 
guish between active and passive verbs, but even with 
these attainments I somehow feel that I have not 
gone to the extreme limits of the meaning of educa- 
tion. In reality, I don't know what it is or what it is 
for. I do wish that the man who says in his book 
that education is a preparation for complete living 
would come into this room right now, sit down in that 
chair, and tell me, man to man, what complete living 
is. I want to know and think I have a right to know. 
Besides, he has no right to withhold this information 
from me. He had no right to get me all stirred up 
with his definition, and then go away and leave me 
44 



COMPLETE LIVING 

dangling in the air. If he were here I'd ask him a few 
pointed questions. I'd ask him to tell me just how 
the fact that seven times nine is sixty-three is con- 
nected up with complete living. I'd want him to ex- 
plain, too, what the binomial theorem has to do with 
complete living, and also the dative of reference. I 
got the notion, when I was struggling with that bi- 
nomial theorem, that it would ultimately lead on to 
fame or fortune; but it hasn't done either, so far as I 
can make out. 

There was a time when I could solve an equation of 
three unknown quantities, and could even jimmy a 
quantity out from under a radical sign, and had the 
feeling that I was quite a fellow. Then one day I 
went into a bookstore to buy a book. I had quite 
enough money to pay for one, and had somehow got 
the notion that a boy of my attainments ought to 
have a book. But, in the presence of the blond chap 
behind the counter, I was quite abashed, for I did 
not in the least know what book I wanted. I knew 
it wasn't a Bible, for we had one at home, but further 
than that I could not go. Now, if knowing how to 
buy a book is a part of complete living, then, in that 
blond presence, I was hopelessly adrift. I had been 
taught that gambling is wrong, but there was a situa- 
tion where I had to take a chance or show the white 
feather. Of course, I took the chance and was re- 
45 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

lieved of my money by a blond who may or may 
not have been able to solve radicals. I shall not give 
the title of the book I drew in that lottery, for this 
is neither the time nor the place for confessions. 

I was a book-agent for one summer, but am try- 
ing to live it down. Hoping to sell a copy of the book 
whose glowing description I had memorized, I called 
at the home of a wealthy farmer. The house was 
spacious and embowered in beautiful trees and shrub- 
bery. There was a noble driveway that led up from 
the country road, and everything betokened great 
prosperity. Once inside the house, I took a survey of 
the fittings and could see at once that the farmer 
had lavished money upon the home to make it dis- 
tinctive in the neighborhood as a suitable background 
for his wife and daughters. The piano alone must 
have cost a small fortune, and it was but one of the 
many instruments to be seen. There were carpets, 
rugs, and curtains in great profusion, and a bewilder- 
ing array of all sorts of bric-a-brac. In time the 
father asked one of the daughters to play, and she re- 
sponded with rather unbecoming alacrity. What she 
played I shall never know, but it seemed to me to be 
a five-finger exercise. Whatever it was, it was not 
music. I lost interest at once and so had time to 
make a more critical inspection of the decorations. 
What I saw was a battle royal. There was the utmost 
46 



COMPLETE LIVING 

lack of harmony. The rugs fought the carpets, and 
both were at the throats of the curtains. Then the 
wall-paper joined in the fray, and the din and confusion 
was torture to the spirit. Even the furniture caught 
the spirit of discord and made fierce attacks upon 
everything else in the room. The reds, and yellows, 
and blues, and greens whirled and swirled about in 
such a dizzy and belligerent fashion that I wondered 
how the people ever managed to escape nervous pros- 
tration. But the daughter went right on with the 
five-finger exercise as if nothing else were happen- 
ing. I shall certainly cite this case when the man 
comes in to explain what he means by complete 
living. 

This all reminds me of the man of wealth who 
thought it incumbent upon him to give his neighbors 
some benefit of his money in the way of pleasure. 
So he went to Europe and bought a great quantity 
of marble statuary and had the pieces placed in the 
spacious grounds about his home. When the open- 
ing day came there ensued much suppressed tittering 
and, now and then, an uncontrollable guffaw. Diana, 
Venus, Vulcan, Apollo, Jove, and Mercury had evi- 
dently stumbled into a convention of nymphs, satyrs, 
fairies, sprites, furies, harpies, gargoyles, giants, pyg- 
mies, muses, and fates. The result was bedlam. 
Parenthetically, I have often wondered how much 
47 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

money it cost that man to make the discovery that 
he was not a connoisseur of art, and also what process 
of education might have fitted him for a wise expendi- 
ture of all that money. 

So I go on wondering what education is, and no- 
body seems quite willing to tell me. I bought some 
wall-paper once, and when it had been hung there 
was so much laughter at my taste, or lack of it, that, 
in my chagrin, I selected another pattern to cover 
up the evidence of my ignorance. But that is ex- 
pensive, and a schoolmaster can ill afford such luxu- 
rious ignorance. People were unkind enough to say 
that the bare wall would have been preferable to my 
first selection of paper. I was made conscious that 
complete living was impossible so long as that paper 
was visible. But even when the original had been 
covered up I looked at the wall suspiciously to see 
whether it would show through as a sort of subdued 
accusation against me. I don't pretend to know 
whether taste in the selection of wall-paper is inherent 
or acquired. If it can be acquired, then I wonder, 
again, just how cube root helps it along. 

I don't know what education is, but I do know that 
it is expensive. I had some pictures in my den that 
seemed well enough till I came to look at some others, 
and then they seemed cheap and inadequate. I tried 
to argue myself out of this feeling, but did not succeed. 
48 



COMPLETE LIVING 

As a result, the old pictures have been supplanted by 
new ones, and I am poorer in consequence. But, in 
spite of my depleted purse, I take much pleasure in 
my new possessions and feel that they are indications 
of progress. I wonder, though, how long it will be 
till I shall want still other and better ones. Educa- 
tion may be a good thing, but it does increase and 
multiply one's wants. Then, in a brief time, these 
wants become needs, and there you have perpetual 
motion. When the agent came to me first to try to 
get me interested in an encyclopaedia I could scarce 
refrain from smiling. But later on I began to want 
an encyclopaedia, and now the one I have ranks as a 
household necessity the same as bathtub, coffee-pot, 
and tooth-brush. 

But, try as I may, I can't clearly distinguish be- 
tween wants and needs. I see a thing that I want, 
and the very next day I begin to wonder how I can 
possibly get on without it. This must surely be the 
psychology of show-windows and show-cases. If I 
didn't see the article I should feel no want of it, of 
course. But as soon as I see it I begin to want it, and 
then I think I need it. The county fair is a great 
psychological institution, because it causes people to 
want things and then to think they need them. The 
worst of it is the less able I am to buy a thing the 
more I want it and seem to need it. I'd like to have 
49 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

money enough to make an experiment on myself just 
to see if I could ever reach the pomt, as did the 
CaUph, where the only want I'd have would be a want. 
Possibly, that's what the man means by complete 
living. I wonder. 



50 



CHAPTER VIII 
MY SPEECH 

FOR some time I have had it in mind to make a 
speech. I don't know what I would say nor 
where I could possibly find an audience, but, in spite 
of all that, I feel that I'd like to try myself out on a 
speech. I can't trace this feeling back to its source. 
It may have started when I heard a good speech, 
somewhere, or, it may have started when I heard a 
poor one. I can't recall. When I hear a good speech 
I feel that I'd like to do as well; and, when I hear a 
poor one, I feel that I'd like to do better. The only 
thing that is settled, as yet, about this speech that I 
want to make is the subject, and even that is not 
my own. It is just near enough my own, however, 
to obviate the use of quotation-marks. The hardest 
part of the task of writing or speaking is to gain credit 
for what some one else has said or written, and still 
be able to omit quotation-marks. That calls for both 
mental and ethical dexterity of a high order. 

But to the speech. The subject is Dialectic Ef- 
ficiency — without quotation-marks, be it noted. The 
way of it is this: I have been reading, or, rather, 
trying to read the masterly book by Doctor Fletcher 
51 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

Durell, whose title is "Fundamental Sources of Ef- 
ficiency." This is one of the most recondite books 
that has come from the press in a generation, and it 
is no reflection upon the book for me to say that I 
have been trying to read it. It is so big, so deep, so 
high, and so wide that I can only splash around in 
it a bit. But "the water's fine." At any rate, I have 
been dipping into this book quite a little, and that is 
how I came upon the caption of my speech. Of course, 
I get the word "efficiency" from the title of the book, 
and, besides, everybody uses that word nowadays. 
Then, the author of this book has a chapter on "Dia- 
lectic," and so I combine these two words and thus 
get rid of the quotation-marks. 

And that certainly is an imposing subject for a 
speech. If it should ever be printed on a programme, 
it would prove awe-inspiring. Next to making a good 
speech, I'd like to be skilled in sleight-of-hand af- 
fairs. I'd like to fish up a rabbit from the depths of 
an old gentleman's silk tile, or extract a dozen eggs 
from a lady's hand-bag, or transmute a canary into 
a goldfish. I'd like to see the looks of wonder on the 
faces of the audience and hear them gasp. The dif- 
ficulty with such a subject as I have chosen, though, 
is to fill the frame. I went into a shop in Paris once 
to make some small purchase, expecting to find a great 
emporium, but, to my surprise, found that all the 
52 



MY SPEECH 

goods were in the show-window. That's one trouble 
with my subject — all the goods seem to be in the 
show-window. But, I'll do the best I can with it, 
even if I am compelled to pilfer from the pages of the 
book. 

In the introduction of the speech I shall become 
expansive upon the term Dialectic, and try to impress 
my hearers (if there are any) with my thorough ac- 
quaintance with all things which the term suggests. 
If I continue expatiating upon the word long enough 
they may come to think that I actually coined the 
word, for I shall not emphasize Doctor Durell especially 
— just enough to keep my soul untarnished. In a 
review of this book one man translates the first word 
"luck." I don't like his word and for two reasons: 
In the first place, it is a short word, and everybody 
knows that long words are better for speechmaking 
purposes. If he had used the word "accidental" or 
"incidental" I'd think more of his translation and of 
his review. I'm going to use my word as if Doctor 
Durell had said Incidental. 

So much for the introduction; now for the speech. 
From this point forward I shall draw largely upon 
the book but shall so turn and twist what the doctor 
says as to make it seem my own. With something 
of a flourish, I shall tell how in the year 1856 a young 
chemist, named Perkin, while trying to produce quinine 
53 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

sjnnthetically, hit upon the process of producing aniline 
dyes. His incidental discovery led to the establish- 
ment of the artificial-dye industry, and we have here 
an example of dialectic efficiency. This must impress 
my intelligent and cultured auditors, and they will 
be wondering if I can produce another illustration 
equally good. I can, of course, for this book is rich 
in illustrations. I can see, as it were, the old fellow 
on the third seat, who has been sitting there as stiff 
and straight as a ramrod, limber up just a mite, and 
with my next point I hope to induce him to lean for- 
ward an inch, at least, out of the perpendicular. 

Then I shall proceed to recoulit to them how Chris- 
topher Columbus, in an effort to circumnavigate the 
globe and reach the eastern coast of Asia, failed in 
this undertaking, but made a far greater achieve- 
ment in the discovery of America. If, at this point, 
the old man is leaning forward two or three inches 
instead of one, I may ask, in dramatic style, where 
we should all be to-day if Columbus had reached Asia 
instead of America — in other words, if this principle 
of dialectic efficiency had not been in full force. Just 
here, to give opportunity for possible applause, I 
shall take the handkerchief from my pocket with 
much deliberation, unfold it carefully, and wipe my 
face and forehead as an evidence that dispensing 
second-hand thoughts is a sweat-producing process. 
54 



MY SPEECH 

Then, in a sort of sublimated frenzy, I shall fairly 
deluge them with illustrations, telling how the estab- 
lishment of rural mail-routes led to improved roads 
and these, in turn, to consolidated schools and better 
conditions of living in the country; how the potato- 
beetle, which seems at first to be a scourge, was really 
a blessing in disguise in that it set farmers to studying 
improved methods resulting in largely increased crops, 
and how the scale has done a like service for fruit- 
growers; how a friend of mine was drilling for oil 
and found water instead, and now has an artesian well 
that supphes water in great abundance, and how one 
Mr. Hellriegel, back in 1886, made the incidental dis- 
covery that leguminous plants fixate nitrogen, and, 
hence, our fields of clover, alfalfa, cow-peas, and soy- 
beans. 

It will not seem out of place if I recall to them how 
the Revolution gave us Washington, the Adamses, 
Hancock, Madison, Franklin, Jefferson, and Hamil- 
ton; how slavery gave us Clay, Calhoun, and Webster; 
and how the Civil War gave us Lincoln, Seward, 
Stanton, Grant, Lee, Sherman, Sheridan, and "Stone- 
wall" Jackson. If there should, by chance, be any 
teachers present I'll probably enlarge upon this his- 
torical phase of the subject if I can think of any other 
illustrations. I shall certainly emphasize the fact 
that the incidental phases of school work may prove 
55 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

to be more important than the objects du'ectly aimed 
at, that while the teacher is striving to inculcate a 
knowledge of arithmetic she may be inculcating man- 
hood and womanhood, and that the by-products of 
her teaching may become world-wide influences. 

As a peroration, I shall expand upon the subject 
of pleasure as an incidental of work — showing how the 
mere pleasure-seeker never finds what he is seeking, 
but that the man who works is the one who finds 
pleasure. I think I shall be able to find some apt 
quotation from Emerson before the time for the speech 
comes around. If so, I shall use it so as to take their 
minds off the fact that I am taking the speech from 
Doctor Durell's book. 



56 



CHAPTER IX 
SCHOOL-TEACHING 

THE first school that I ever tried to teach was, 
indeed, fearfully and wonderfully taught. The 
teaching was of the sort that might well be called ele- 
mental. If there was any pedagogy connected with 
the work, it was purely accidental. I was not con- 
scious either of its presence or its absence, and so 
deserve neither praise nor censure. I had one pupil 
who was nine years my senior, and I did not even 
know that he was retarded. I recall quite distinctly 
that he had a luxuriant crop of chm-whiskers but even 
these did not disturb the procedure of that school. 
We accepted him as he was, whiskers included, and 
went on our complacent way. He was blind in one 
eye and somewhat deaf, but no one ever thought of 
him as abnormal or subnormal. Even if we had knowTi 
these words we should have been too polite to apply 
them to him. In fact, we had no black-Hst, of any 
sort, in that school. I have never been able to de- 
termine whether the absence of such a list was due to 
ignorance, or innocence, or both. So long as he found 
the school an agreeable place in which to spend the 
57 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

winter, and did not interfere with the work of others, 
I could see no good reason why he should not be there 
and get what he could from the lessons in spelling, 
geogi-aphy, and arithmetic. I do not mention grammar 
for that was quite beyond him. The agreement of 
subject and verb was one of life's great mysteries to 
him. So I permitted him to browse around in such 
pastures as seemed finite to him, and let the infinite 
grammar go by default so far as he was concerned. 

I have but the most meagre acquaintance with the 
pedagogical dicta of the books — a mere bowing ac- 
quaintance — but, at that tune, I had not even been 
introduced to any of these. But, as the saying goes, 
"The Lord takes care of fools and children," and, so, 
somehow, by sheer blind luck, I instinctively veered 
away from the Procrustean bed idea, and found some 
work for my bewhiskered disciple that connected with 
his native dispositions. Had any one told me I was 
doing any such things I think I should, probably, have 
asked him how to spell the words he was using. I 
only knew that this man-child was there yearning for 
knowledge, and I was glad to share my meagre store 
of crumbs with him. His gratitude for my small 
gifts was really pathetic, and right there I learned the 
joys of the teacher. That man sought me out on our 
way home from school and asked questions that would 
have puzzled Socrates, but forgot my ignorance of 
oS 



SCHOOL-TEACHING 

hard questions in his joy at my answers of easy ones. 
When some hght would break in upon him he cavorted 
about me Uke a glad dog, and became a second Colum- 
bus, discovering a new world. 

I almost lose patience with myself, at times, when 
I catch myself preening my feathers before some 
pedagogical mirror, as if I were getting ready to 
appear in public as an accredited schoolmaster. At 
such a time, I long to go back to the country road and 
saunter along beside some pupil, either with or without 
whiskers, and give him of my little store without rules 
or frills and with no pomp or parade. In that little 
school at the crossroads we never made any prepara- 
tion for some possible visitor who might come in to 
survey us or apply some efficiency test, or give us a 
rating either as individuals or as a school. We were 
too busy and happy for that. We kept right on at 
our work with our doors and our hearts wide open 
for every good thing that came our way, whether 
knowledge or people. As I have said, our work was 
elemental. 

I am glad I came across this little book of William 
James, "On Some of Life's Ideals," for it takes me 
back, inferentially, to that elemental school, espe- 
cially in this paragraph which says: "Life is always 
worth living, if one have such responsive sensibiHties. 
But we of the highly educated classes (so-called) 
59 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

have most of us got far, far away from Nature. We 
are trained to seek the choice, the rare, the exquisite 
exclusively and to overlook the common. We are 
stuffed with abstract conceptions, and glib with ver- 
balities and verbosities; and in the culture of these 
higher functions the peculiar sources of joy connected 
with our simpler functions often dry up, and we grow 
stone-blind and insensible to life's more elementary 
and general goods and joys." 

I wish I might go home from school one evening 
by way of the top of Mt. Vesuvius, another by way of 
Mt. Rigi, and, another, by way of Lauterbrunnen. 
Then the next evening I should like to spend an hour 
or two along the borders of Yellowstone Canyon, and 
the next, watch an eruption or two of Old Faithful 
geyser. Then, on still another evening, I'd like to 
ride for two hours on top of a bus in London. I'd 
like to have these experiences as an antidote for empti- 
ness. It would prepare me far better for to-morrow's 
work than pondering Johnny's defections, or his 
grades, whether high or low, or marking silly papers 
with marks that are still sillier. I like Walt Whit- 
man because he was such a sublime loafer. His loaf- 
ing gave him time to grow big inside, and so, he had 
big elemental thoughts that were good for him and 
good for me when I think them over after him. 

If I should ever get a position in a normal school 
60 



SCHOOL-TEACHING 

I'd want to give a course in William J. Locke's "The 
Beloved Vagabond," so as to give the young folks 
a conception of big elemental teaching. If I were 
giving a course in ethics, I'd probably select another 
book, but, in pedagogy, I'd certainly include that 
one. I'd lose some students, to be sure, for some of 
them would be shocked; but a person who is not big 
enough to profit by reading that book never ought 
to teach school — I mean for the school's sake. If we 
could only lose the consciousness of the fact that 
we are schoolmasters for a few hours each day, it 
would be a great help to us and to our boys and 
girls. 

I am quite partial to the "Madonna of the Chair," 
and wish I might visit the Pitti Gallery frequently 
just to gaze at her. She is so wholesome and gives 
one the feeling that a big soul looks out through her 
eyes. She would be a superb teacher. She would fill 
the school with her presence and still do it all un- 
consciously. The centre of the room would be where 
she happened to be. She would never be mistaken for 
one of the pupils. Her pupils would learn arithmetic 
but the arithmetic would be laden with her big spirit, 
and that would be better for them than the arithmetic 
could possibly be. If I had to be a woman I'd want 
to be such as this Madonna — serene, majestic, and 
big-souled. 

61 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

I have often wondered whether bigness of soul can 
be cultivated, and my optimism inchnes to a vote 
in the afl&rmative. I spent a part of one sunmier in 
the pine woods far away from the haunts of men. 
When I had to leave this sylvan retreat it required 
eleven hours by stage to reach the railway-station. 
There for some weeks I lived in a log cabin, accom- 
panied by a cook and a professional woodsman. I 
was not there to camp, to fish, or to loaf, and yet I 
did all these. There were some duties and work con- 
nected with the enterprise and these gave zest to the 
fishing and the loafing. Giant trees, space, and sky 
were my most intimate associates, and they told me 
only of big things. They had never a word to say of 
styles of clothing or becoming shades of neckwear or 
hosiery. In all that time I was never disturbed by 
the number and diversity of spoons and forks beside 
my plate at the dinner-table. Many a noble meal 
I ate as I sat upon a log supported in forked stakes, 
and many a big thought did I glean from the talk of 
loggers about me in their picturesque costumes. In 
the evening I sat upon a great log in front of the cabin 
or a friendly stump, and forgot such things as ham- 
mocks and porch-swings. Instead of gazing at street- 
lamps only a few yards away I was gazing at stars 
milUons of miles away, and, somehow, the soul seemed 
to gain freedom. 

62 



SCHOOL-TEACHING 

And I had luxury, too. I had a room with bath. 
The bath was at the stream some fifty yards away, 
but such discrepancies are minor affairs in the midst 
of such big elemental things as were all about me. My 
mattress was of young cherry shoots, and never did 
king have a more royal bed, or ever such refreshing 
sleep. And, while I slept, I grew inside, for the soft 
music of the pines lulled me to rest, and the subdued 
ripphng of my bath-stream seemed to wash my soul 
clean. When I arose I had no bad taste in my mouth 
or m my soul, and each morning had for me the glory 
of a resurrection. My trees were there to bid me 
good morning, the big spaces spoke to me in their 
own inspiriting language, and the big sun, playing 
hide-and-seek among the great boles of ihe trees as 
he mounted from the horizon, gave me a panorama 
unrivalled among the scenes of earth. 

When I returned to what men called civilization 
I experienced a poignant longing for my big trees, 
my sky, and my spaces, and felt that I had exchanged 
them for many things that are petty and futile. If 
my school were only out in the heart of that big forest, 
I feel that my work would be more effective and that 
I would not have to potter about among little things 
to obey the whims of convention and the dictates of 
technicalities, but that the soul would be free to revel 
in the truth that sky and space proclaim. I do hope 
63 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

I may never know so much about technical pedagogy 
that I shall not know anything else. This may be 
what those people mean who speak of the "revolt of 
the ego." 



64 



CHAPTER X 

BEEFSTEAK 

T AM just now quite in the mood to join the band; 
I mean the vocational-education band. The ex- 
citement has carried me off my feet. I can't endure 
the looks of suspicion or pity that I see on the faces 
of my colleagues. They stare at me as if I were wear- 
ing a tie or a hat or a coat that is a bit below stand- 
ard. I want to seem, if not be, modern and up-to- 
date, and not odd and peculiar. So I shall join the 
band. I am not caring much whether I beat the 
drum, carry the flag, or lead the trick-bear. I may 
even ride in the gaudily painted wagon behind a 
spotted pony and call out in raucous tones to all 
and sundry to hurry around to the main tent to get 
their education before the rush. In times past, when 
these vocational folks have piped unto me I have 
not danced; but I now see the error of my ways and 
shall proceed at once to take dancing lessons. When 
these folks lead in the millennium I want to be sitting 
well up in front; and when they get the pot of gold 
at the end of the rainbow I want to participate in 
the distribution. I do hope, though, that I may not 
65 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

exhaust my resources on the band and have none 
left for the boys and girls. I hope I may not imitate 
Mark Twain's steamboat that stopped dead still when 
the whistle blew, because blowing the whistle required 
all the steam. 

I suspect that, like the Irishman, I shall have to 
wear my new boots awhile before I can get them on, 
for this new role is certam to entail many changes 
in my plans and in my ways of doing things. I can 
see that it will be a wrench for me to tliink of the 
boy^ and girls as pedagogical specimens and not 
persons. I have contracted the habit of thinking of 
them as persons, and it will not be easy to come to 
thinking of them as mere objects to practise on. The 
folks in the hospital speak of their patients as "cases,'' 
but I'd rather keep aloof from the hospital plan in 
my schoolmastering. But, being a member of the 
band, I suppose that I'll feel it my duty to conform 
and do my utmost to help prove that our cult has 
discovered the great and universal panacea, the balm 
in Gilead. 

As a member of the band, in good and regular 
standing, I shall find myself saying that the school 
should have the boys and girls pursue such studies 
as will fit them for then* life-work. This has a pleasing 
sound. Now, if I can only find out, somehow, what 
the life-work of each one of my pupils is to be, I'll be 
66 



BEEFSTEAK 

all right, and shall proceed to fit each one out with 
his belongings. I have asked them to tell me what 
their life-work is to be, but they tell me they do not 
know. So I suspect that I must visit all their parents 
in order to get this information. Until I get this 
information I cannot begin on my course of study. 
If their parents cannot tell me I hardly know what 
I shall do, unless I have recourse to their maiden 
aunts. They ought to know. But if they decline to 
tell I must begin on a long series of guesses, unless, in 
the meantime, I am endowed with omniscience. 

This whole plan fascinates me; I dote upon it. It 
is so pliable, so dreamy, and so opalescent that I can 
scarce restrain my enthusiasm. But if I should fit 
one of my boys out with the equipment necessary for 
a blacksmith, and then he should become a preacher, 
I'd find the situation embarrassmg. My reputation 
as a prophet would certainly decline. If I could know 
that this boy is looking forward to the ministry as his 
life-work, the matter would be simple. I'd proceed 
to fit him out with a fire-proof suit of Greek, Hebrew, 
and theology and have the thing done. But even 
then some of my colleagues might protest on the 
assumption that Greek and Hebrew are not voca- 
tional studies. The preacher might assert that they 
are vocational for his work, in which case I'd find 
myself in the midst of an argument. I know a young 
67 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

man who is a student in a college of medicine. He is 
paying his way by means of his music. He both plays 
and sings, and can thus pay his bills. In the college 
he studies chemistry, anatomy, and the like. I'm try- 
ing to figure out whether or not, in his case, either 
his music or his chemistry is vocational. 

I have been perusing the city directory to find out 
how many and what vocations there are, that I may 
plan my course of study accordingly when I discover 
what the life-work of each of my pupils is to be. If 
I find that one boy expects to be an undertaker he 
ought to take the dead languages, of course. If an- 
other boy expects to be a jockey he might take these 
same languages with the aid of a "pony." If a girl 
decides upon marriage as her vocation, I'll have her 
take home economics, of course, but shall have dif- 
ficulty in deciding upon her other studies. If I omit 
Latin, history, and algebra, she may reproach me later 
on because of these omissions. She may find that 
such studies as these are essential to success in the 
vocation of wife and mother. She may have a boy 
of her own who will invoke her aid in his quest for 
the value of x, and a mother hesitates to enter a plea 
of ignorance to her own child. 

I can fit out the dancing-master easily enough, but 
am not so certain about the barber, the chauffeur, 
and the aviator. The aviator would give me no end 
68 



BEEFSTEAK 

of trouble, especially if I should deem it necessary 
to teach him by the laboratory method. Then, again, 
if one boy decides to become a pharmacist, I may 
find it necessary to attend night classes in this subject 
myself in order to meet the situation with a fair de- 
gree of complacency. Nor do I see my way clear in 
providing for the steeple-climber, the equilibrist, the 
railroad president, or the tea-taster. I'll probably 
have my troubles, too, with the novel-writer, the 
poet, the politician, and the bareback rider. But I 
must manage somehow if I hope to retain my member- 
ship in the band. 

I see that I shall have to serve quite an apprentice- 
ship in the band before I write my treatise on the 
subject of pedagogical predestination. The world 
needs that essay, and I must get around to it just as 
soon as possible. Of course, that will be a great step 
beyond the present plan of finding out what a boy 
expects to do, and then teaching him accordingly. 
My predestination plan contemplates the process of 
arranging such a course of study for him as will make 
him what we want him to be. A naturalist tells me 
that when a queen bee dies the swarm set to work 
making another queen by feeding one of the common 
working bees some queen stuff. He failed to tell me 
just what this queen stuff is. That process of pro- 
ducing a queen bee is what gave me the notion as to 
69 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

my treatise. If the parents want their boy to become 
a lawyer I shall feed him lawyer stuff; if a preacher, 
then preacher stuff, and so on. 

This will necessitate a deal of researcn work, for I 
shall have to go back into history, first of all, to find 
out the course of study that produced Newton, Hum- 
boldt, Darwin, Shakespeare, Dante, Edison, Clara 
Barton, and the rest of them. If a roast-beef diet is 
responsible for Shakespeare, surely we ought to pro- 
duce another Shakespeare, considering the excellence 
of the cattle we raise. I can easily discover the con- 
stituent elements of the beef pudding of which Samuel 
Johnson was so fond by writing to the old Cheshire 
Cheese in London. Of course, this plan of mine seems 
not to take into account the Lord's work to any large 
extent. But that seems to be the way of us voca- 
tionaUsts. We seem to think we can do certain things 
in spite of what the Lord has or has not done. 

The one danger that I foresee in all this work that 
I have planned is that it may produce overstimula- 
tion. Some one was telHng me that the trees on the 
Embankment there in London are dying of arboreal 
insomnia. The fight of the sun keeps them awake 
all day, and the electric lights keep them awake all 
night. So the poor things are dying from lack of sleep. 
Macbeth had some trouble of that sort, too, as I re- 
call it. I'm going to hold on to the vocational stimula- 
70 



BEEFSTEAK 

tion unless I find it is producing pedagogical insomnia. 
Then I'll resign from the band and take a long nap. 
I'll continue to advocate pudding, pastry, and pie 
until I find that they are not producing the sort of 
men and women the world needs, and then I'll beat 
an inglorious retreat and again espouse the cause of 
orthodox beefsteak. 



71 



CHAPTER XI 

FREEDOM 

T HAVE often wondered what conjunction of the 
•■• stars caused me to become a schoohnaster, if, in- 
deed, the stars, lucky or otherwise, had anj^thing to 
do with it. It may have been the salary that lured 
me, for thirty-five dollars a month bulks large on a 
boy's horizon. Possibly the fact that in those days 
there was no anteroom to the teaching business may 
have been the deciding factor. One had but to ex- 
change his hickory shirt for a white one, and the trick 
was done. There was not even a fence between the 
corn-field and the schoolhouse. I might just as easily 
have been a preacher but for the barrier in the shape 
of a theological seminary, or a hod-carrier but for the 
barrier of learning how. As it was, I could draw my 
pay for husking corn on Saturday night, and begin 
accumulating salary as a schoolmaster on Monday. 
The plan was simplicity itself, and that may account 
for my choice of a vocation. 

I have sometimes tried to imagine myself a preacher, 
but with poor success. The sermon would bother me 
no little, to make no mention of the other functions. 
72 



FREEDOM 

I thiiik I never could get through with a marriage 
ceremony, and at a christening I'd be on nettles all 
the while, fearing the baby would cry and thus dis- 
turb the solemnity of the occasion and of the preacher. 
I'd want to take the baby into my own arms and 
have a romp with him — and so would forget about 
the baptizing. In casting about for a possible text 
for this impossible preacher, I have found only one 
that I think I might do something with. Hence, 
my preaching would endure but a single week, and 
even at that we'd have to have a song service on 
Sunday evening in lieu of a sermon. 

My one text would be: "Ye shall know the truth 
and the truth shall make you free.'' I do not know 
how big truth is, but it must be quite extensive if 
science, mathematics, history, and literature are but 
small parts of it. I have never explored these parts 
very far inland, but they seem to my limited gaze to 
extend a long distance before me; and when I get 
to thinking that each of these is but a part of some- 
thing that is called truth I begin to feel that truth is 
a pretty large affair. I suspect the text means that 
the more of this truth we know the greater freedom 
we have. My friend Brown has an automobile, 
and sometimes he takes me out riding. On one of 
these occasions we had a puncture, with the usual 
attendant circumstances. While Brown made the 
73 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

needful repairs, I sat upon the grassy bank. The 
passers-by probably regarded me as a lazy chap who 
disdained work of all sorts, and perhaps thought of 
me as enjoying myself while Brown did the work. In 
this they were grossly mistaken, for Brown was hav- 
ing the good time, while I was bored and uncomfort- 
able. Why, Brown actually whistled as he repaired 
that puncture. He had freedom because he knew 
which tool to use, where to find it, and how to use it. 
But there I sat in ignorance and thraldom — not 
knowing the truth about the tools or the processes. 

In the presence of that episode I felt like one in a 
foreign country who is ignorant of the language, while 
Brown was the concierge who understands many 
languages. He knew the truth and so had freedom. 
I have often wondered whether men do not some- 
times get drunk to win a respite from the thraldom 
and boredom of their ignorance of the truth. It must 
be a very trying experience not to understand the 
language that is spoken all about one. I have some- 
thing of that feeling when I go into a drug-store and 
find myself in complete ignorance of the contents 
of the bottles because I cannot read the labels. I 
have no freedom because I do not know the truth. 
The dapper clerk who takes down one bottle after 
another with refreshing freedom relegates me to the 
kindergarten, and I certainly feel and act the part. 
74 



FREEDOM 

I had this same feeling, too, when I was making 
ready to sow my little field with alfalfa. I wanted 
to have alfalfa growing in the field next to the road 
for my own pleasure and for the pleasure of the passers- 
by. A field of alfalfa is an ornament to any landscape, 
and I like to have my landscapes ornamental, even if 
I must pay for it in terms of manual toil. I had never 
even seen alfalfa seed and did not in the least know 
how to proceed in preparing the soil. If I ever ex- 
pected to have any freedom I must first learn the 
truth, and a certain modicum of freedom necessarily 
precedes the joy of alfalfa. 

Thus it came to pass that I set about learning the 
truth. I had to learn about the nature of the soil, 
about drainage, about the right kinds of fertilizer, 
and all that, before I could even hitch the team to a 
plough. Some of this truth I gleaned from books and 
magazines, but more of it I obtained from my neighbor 
John, who fives about two hundred yards up the pike 
from my little place. John is a veritable encyclopaedia 
of truth when it comes to the subject of alfalfa. There 
I would sit at the feet of this alfalfa Gamafiel. Be it 
said in favor of my reactions that I learned the trick 
of alfalfa and now have a field that is a delight to the 
eye. And I now feel qualified to give lessons in al- 
falfa cultm'e to all and sundry, so great is my sense of 
freedom. 

75 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

I came upon a forlorn-looking woman once in a 
large railway-station who was in great distress. She 
wanted to get a train, but did not know through which 
gate to go nor where to obtain the necessary informa- 
tion. She was overburdened with luggage and a little 
girl was tugging at her dress and crying pitifully. 
That woman was as really in bondage as if she had 
been in prison looking out through the barred win- 
dows. When she had finally been piloted to the train 
the joy of freedom manifested itself in every linea- 
ment of her face. She had come to know the truth, 
and the truth had set her free. 

I know how she felt, for one night I worked for 
more than two hours on what, to me, was a difficult 
problem, and when at last I had it solved the manifes- 
tations of joy caused consternation to the family and 
damage to the furniture. I never was in jail for any 
length of time, but I think I Imow, from'my experience 
with that problem, just how a prisoner feels when he 
is set free. The big out-of-doors must seem inex- 
pressibly good to him. My neighbor John taught me 
how to spray my trees, and now, when I walk through 
my orchard and see the smooth trunks and pick the 
beautiful, smooth, perfect apples, I feel that sense of 
freedom that can come only through a knowledge of 
the truth. 

I haven't looked up the etymology of grippe, but the 
76 



FREEDOM 

word itself seems to tell its own story. It seems to 
mean restriction, subjection, slavery. It certainly 
spells lack of freedom. I have seen many boys and 
girls who seemed afflicted with arithmetical, gram- 
matical, and geographical grippe, and I have sought 
to free them from its tyranny and lead them forth 
into the sunlight and pure air of freedom. If I only 
knew just how to do this effectively I think Fd be 
quite reconciled to the work of a schoolmaster. 



77 



CHAPTER XII 

THINGS 

T KEEP resolving and resolving to reform and lead 
■■■ the simple life, but something always happens that 
prevents the execution of my plans. When I am grub- 
bing out willows along the ravine, the grubbing-hoe, 
a lunch-basket well filled, and a jug of water from the 
deep well up there under the trees seem to be the sum 
total of the necessary appliances for a life of useful- 
ness and contentment. There is a friendly maple-tree 
near the scene of the grubbing activities, and an hour 
at noon beneath that tree with free access to the 
basket and the jug seems to meet the utmost demands 
of life. The grass is luxuriant, the shade is all-em- 
bracing, and the willows can wait. So, what additions 
can possibly be needed? I lie there in the shade, my 
hunger and thirst abundantly satisfied, and contem- 
plate the results of my forenoon's toil with the very 
acme of satisfaction. There is now a large, clear space 
where this morning there was a jungle of willows. The 
willows have been grubbed out imis sedibus, as our 
friend Virgil would say it, and not merely chopped off; 
and the thoroughness of the work gives emphasis to 
the satisfaction. 

78 



THINGS 

The overalls, the heavy shoes, and the sunshade 
hat all belong in the picture. But the entire ward- 
robe costs less than the hat I wear on Sunday. Then 
the comfort of these inexpensive habiliments ! I need 
not be fastidious in such a garb, but can loll on the 
grass without compunction. When I get mud upon my 
big shoes I simply scrape it off with a chip, and that's 
all there is to it. The dirt on my overalls is honest 
dirt, and honestly come by, and so needs no apology. 
I can talk to my neighbor John of the big things of 
life and feel no shame because of overalls. 

Then, in the evening, when resting from my toil, I 
sit out under the leafy canopy and revel in the sounds 
that can be heard only in the country — the croaking 
of the frogs, the soft twittering of the birds somewhere 
near, yet out of sight, the cosey crooning of the chickens 
as they settle upon their perches for the night, and the 
lonely hooting of the owl somewhere in the big tree 
down in the pasture. I need not move from my seat 
nor barter my money for a concert in some majestic 
hall ablaze with lights when such music as this may 
be had for the hstening. Under the magic of such 
music the body relaxes and the soul expands. The 
soft breezes caress the brow, and the moon makes 
shimmering patterns on the grass. 

But when I return to the town to resume my school- 
mastering, then the strain begins, and then the reign 
79 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

of complexities is renewed. When I am fully garbed 
in my town clothing I find myself the possessor of 
nineteen pockets. What they are all for is more than 
I can make out. If I had them all in use Fd have to 
have a detective along with me to help me find things. 
Out there on the farm two pockets quite suffice, but 
in the town I must have seventeen more. The differ- 
ence between town and country seems to be about the 
difference between grubbing willows and schoolmaster- 
ing. Among the willows I find two pockets are 
all I require; but among the children I must needs 
have nineteen, whether I have anything in them or 
not. 

One of these seems to be designed for a college 
degree; another is an efficiency pocket; another a 
discipline pocket; another a pocket for methods; 
another for professional spirit; another for loyalty to 
all the folks who are in need of loyalty, and so on. I 
really do not know all the labels. When I was exam- 
ined for a license to teach they counted my pockets, 
and, finding I had the requisite nineteen, they bestowed 
upon me the coveted document with something ap- 
proaching eclat. In my teaching I become so bewil- 
dered ransacking these pockets, trying to find some- 
thing that will bear some resemblance to the label, 
that I come near forgetting the boys and girls. But 
they are very nice and polite about it, and seem to 
80 



THINGS 

feel sorry that I must look after all my pockets when 
I'd so much rather be teaching. 

Out in the willow thicket I can go right on with my 
work without so much care or perplexity. Why, I 
don't need to do any talking out there, and so have 
time to do some thinking. But here I do so much 
talking that neither I nor my pupils have any chance 
for thinking. I know it is not the right way, but, 
somehow, I keep on doing it. I think it must be a 
bad habit, but I don't do it when I am grubbing 
willows. I seem to get to the bottom of things out 
there without talking, and I can't make out why I 
don't do the same here in the school. Out there I do 
things; in here I say things. I do wonder if there is 
any forgiveness for a schoolmaster who uses so many 
words and gets such meagre results. 

And then the words I use here are such ponderous 
things. They are not the sort of human, flesh-and- 
blood words that I use when talking to neighbor John 
as we sit on top of the rail fence. These all seem so 
like words in a book, as if I had rehearsed them in 
advance. It may be just the town atmosphere, but, 
whatever it is, I do wish I could talk to these children 
about decimals in the same sort of words that I use 
when I am talking with John. He seems to under- 
stand me, and I think they could. 

Possibly it is just the tension of town life. I know 
81 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

that I seem to get keyed up as soon as I come into 
the town. There are so many things here, and many 
of them are so artificial that I seem unable to relax 
as I do out there where there are just frogs, and moon, 
and chickens, and cows. When I am here I seem to 
have a sort of craze for things. The shop-windows are 
full of things, and I seem to want all of them. I know 
I have no use for them, and yet I get them. My neigh- 
bor Brown bought a percolator, and within a week I 
had one. I had gone on for years without a percolator, 
not even knowing about such a thing, but no sooner 
had Brown bought one than every sound I heard 
seemed to be inquiring: "What is home without a 
percolator?" 

So I go on accumulating things, and my den is a 
veritable medley of things. They don't make me any 
happier, and they are a great bother. There are fifty- 
seven things right here in my den, and I don't need 
more than six or seven of them. There are twenty- 
two pictures, large and small, in this room, but I 
couldn't have named five of them had I not just counted 
them. Why I have them is beyond my comprehen- 
sion. I inveigh against the mania of people for drugs 
and narcotics, but my mania for things only differs in 
kind from theirs. I have a little book called "Things 
of the Mind," and I like to read it. Now, if my mind 
only had as many things in it as my den, I'd be a far 
82 



THINGS 

more agreeable associate for Brown and my neighbor 
John. Or, if I were as careful about getting things 
for my mind as I am in accumulating useless bric-a- 
brac, it would be far more to my credit. 

If the germs that are lurking in and about these 
fifty-seven things should suddenly become as large as 
spiders, I'd certainly be the unhappy possessor of a 
flourishing menagerie, and I think my progress toward 
the simple life would be very promptly hastened. 



83 



CHAPTER XIII 

TARGETS 

T N my work as a schoolmaster I find it well to keep 
-■■ my mind open and not get to thinking that my 
way is the only way, or even the best way. I think 
I learn more from my boys and girls than they learn 
from me, and so long as I can keep an open mind I 
am certain to get some valuable lessons from them. 
I got to telling the college chap about a hen that 
taught me a good lesson, and the first thing I knew I 
was going to school to this college youth, and he was 
enlightening me on the subject of animal psychology, 
and especially upon the trial-and-error theory. That 
set me wondering how many trials and errors that hen 
made before she finally succeeded in surmounting that 
fence. At any rate, the hen taught me another lesson 
besides the lesson of perseverance. 

I have a high wire fence enclosing the chicken-5''ard, 
and in order to make steady the posts to which the 
gate is attached, I joined them at the top by naihng 
a board across. The hen that taught me the lesson 
must be both ambitious and athletic, for time after 
time have I found her outside the chicken-yard. I 
84 



TARGETS 

searched diKgently for the place of exit, but could not 
find it. So, in desperation, I determined one morning 
to discover how that hen gained her freedom if it took 
all day. So I found a comfortable seat and waited. 
In an hour or so the hen came out into the open and 
took a survey of the situation. Then, presently, with 
skill born of experience, she sidled this way and that, 
advanced a httle and then retreated until she found 
the exact location she sought, poised herself for a 
moment, and went sailing right over the board that 
connected the posts. Having made this discovery, I 
removed the board and used wire instead, and thus 
reduced the hen to the plane of obedience. 

Just as soon as the hen lacked something to aim at, 
she could not get over the wire barrier, and she taught 
me the importance of giving my pupils somethmg to 
aim at. I like my boys and gkls, and believe they 
are just as smart as any hen that ever was, and that, 
if ril only supply things for them to aim at, they will 
go high and far. Every time I see that hen I am 
the subject of diverse emotions. I feel half angry at 
myself for being so dull that a mere hen can teach 
me, and then I feel glad that she taught me such a 
useful lesson. Before learning this lesson I seemed 
to expect my pupils to take all their school work on 
faith, to do it because I told them it would be good 
for them. But I now see there is a better way. In 
85 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

my boyhood days we always went to the county fair, 
and that was one of the real events of the year. On 
the morning of that day there was no occasion for any 
one to call me a second time. I was out of bed in a 
trice, at the first call, and soon had my chores done 
ready for the start. I had money in my pocket, too, 
for visions of pink lemonade, peanuts, ice-cream, 
candy, and colored balloons had lured me on from 
achievement to achievement through the preceding 
weeks, and thrift had claimed me for its own. So I 
had money because, all the while, I had been aiming 
at the county fair. 

We used to lay out com ground with a single-shovel 
plough, and took great pride in marking out a straight 
furrow across the field. There was one man in the 
neighborhood who was the champion in tliis art, and 
I wondered how he could do it. So I set about watch- 
ing him to try to learn his art. At either end of the 
field he had a stake several feet high, bedecked at the 
top with a white rag. This he planted at the proper 
distance from the preceding furrow and, in going across 
the field, kept his gaze fixed upon the white rag that 
topped the stake. With a firm grip upon the plough, 
and his eyes riveted upon the white signal, he moved 
across the field in a perfectly straight line. I had 
thought it the right way to keep my eyes fixed upon 
the plough until his practice showed me that I had 
86 



TARGETS 

pursued the wrong course. My furrows were crooked 
and zigzag, while his were straight. I now see that his 
skill came from his having something to aim at. 

I am trying to profit by the example of that farmer 
in my teaching. I'm all the while in quest of stakes 
and white rags to place at the other side of the field 
to direct the progress of the lads and lasses in a straight 
course, and raise their eyes away from the plough that 
they happen to be using. I want to keep them think- 
ing of things that are bigger and further along than 
grades. The grades will come as a matter of course, 
if they can keep their eyes on the object across the 
field. I want them to be too big to work for mere 
grades. We never give prizes in our school, especially 
money prizes. It would seem rather a cheap enter- 
prise to my fine boys and girls to get a piece of money 
for committing to memory the ''Gettysburg Speech." 
We respect ourselves and Lincoln too much for that. 
It would grieve me to know that one of my girls could 
be hired to read a book for an hour in the evening to 
a sick neighbor. I want her to have her pay in a better 
and more enduring medium than that. I'd hope she 
would aim at something higher than that. 

If I can arrange the white rag, I know the pupils will 

do the work. There was Jim, for example, who said 

to his father that he just couldn't do his arithmetic, 

and wished he'd never have to go to school another 

87 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

day. When his father told me about it I began at 
once to hunt for a white rag. And I found it, too. 
We can generally find what we are looking for, if we 
look in dead earnest. Well, the next morning there 
was Jim in the arithmetic class along with Tom and 
Charley. I explained the absence of Harry by telling 
them about his falHng on the ice the night before and 
breaking his right arm. I told them how he could 
get on well enough with his other studies, but would 
have trouble with his arithmetic because he couldn't 
use his arm. Now, Tom and Charley are quick in 
arithmetic, and I asked Tom to go over to Harry's 
after school and help with the arithmetic, and Charley 
to go over the next day, and Jim the third day. Now, 
anybody can see that white rag fluttering at the top 
of the stake across the field two days ahead. So, my 
work was done, and I went on with my daily duties. 
Tom reported the next day, and his report made our 
mouths water as he told of the good things that Harry's 
mother had set out for them to eat. The report of 
Charley the next day was equally alluring. Then 
Jim reported, and on his day that good mother had 
evidently reached the climax in culinary affairs. 
Jim's eyes and face shone as if he had been communing 
with the supernals. 

That was the last I ever heard of Jim's trouble with 
arithmetic. His father was eager to know how the 



TARGETS 

change had been brought about, and I explained on 
the score of the angel-food cake and ice-cream he had 
had over at Harry's, with no sHght mention of my 
glorious white rag. The books, I believe, call this 
social co-operation, or something like that, but I care 
little what they call it so long as Jim's all right. And 
he is all right. Why, there isn't money enough in 
the bank to have brought that look to Jim's face when 
he reported that morning, and any offer to pay him 
for his help to Harry, either in money or school credits, 
would have seemed an insult. My neighbor John tells 
me many things about sheep and the way to drive 
them. He says when he is driving twenty sheep along 
the road he doesn't bother about the two who frisk 
back to the rear of the flock so long as he keeps the 
other eighteen gomg along. He says those two will 
join the others, all in good time. That helped me with 
those three boys. I knew that Tom and Charley 
would go along all right, so asked them to go over to 
Harry's before I mentioned the matter to Jim. When 
I did ask him he came leaping and frisking into the 
flock as if he were afraid we might overlook him. 
What a beautiful straight furrow he ploughed, too. 
His arithmetic work now must make the angels smile. 
I shall certainly mention sheep, the hen, and the 
white rag in my book on farm pedagogy. 



CHAPTER XIV 

SINNERS 

T TAKE unction to myself, sometimes, in the reflec- 
-■■ tion that I have a soul to save, and in certain 
moments of uplift it seems to me to be worth saving. 
Some folks probably call me a sinner, if not a dread- 
ful sinner, and I admit the fact without controversy. 
I do not have at hand a list of the cardinal sins, but I 
suspect I might prove an alibi as to some of them. I 
don't get drunk; I don't swear; I go to church; and 
I contribute, mildly, to charity. But, for all that, 
I'm free to confess myself a sinner. Yet, I still don't 
know what sin is, or what is the way of salvation 
either for myself or for my pupils. I grope around 
all the while trying to find this way. At times, I 
think they may find salvation while they are finding 
the value of x in an algebraic equation, and possibly 
this is true. I cannot tell. If they fail to find the 
value of X, I fall to wondering whether they have 
sinned or the teacher that they cannot find x. 

I have attended revivals in my time, and have had 
good from them. In their pure and rarefied atmos- 
phere I find myself in a state of exaltation. But I 
90 



SINNERS 

find myself in need of a continuous revival to keep 
me at my best. So, in my school work, I feel that I 
must be a revivalist or my pupils will sag back, just 
as I do. I find that the revival of yesterday will not 
sufl5ce for to-day. Like the folks of old, I must gather 
a fresh supply of manna each day. Stale manna is 
not wholesome. I suspect that one of my many sins 
is my laziness in the matter of manna. I found the 
value of X in the problem yesterday, and so am in- 
clined to rest to-day and celebrate the victory. If I 
had to classify myself, I'd say that I am an intermit- 
tent. I eat manna one day, and then want to fast 
for a day or so. I suspect that's what folks mean by 
a besetting sin. 

During my fasting I find myself talking almost 
fluently about my skill and industry as a gatherer of 
manna. I suspect I am trying to make myself believe 
that I'm working in the manna field to-day, by keeping 
my mind on my achievement yesterday. That's an- 
other sin to my discredit, and another occasion for a 
revival. When I am fasting I do the most talking 
about how busy I am. If I were harvesting manna 
I'd not have time for so much talk. I should not need 
to tell how busy I am, for folks could see for themselves. 
I have tried to analyze this talk of mine about being 
so busy just to see whether I am trying to deceive my- 
self or my neighbors. I fell to talking about this the 
91 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

other day to my neighbor John, and detected a faint 
smile on his face which I interpreted to be a query as 
to what I have to show for all my supposed industry. 
Well, I changed the subject. That smile on John's 
face made me think of revivals. 

I read Henderson's novel, "John Percyfield," and 
enjoyed it so much that when I came upon his other 
book, "Education and the Larger Life," I bought and 
read it. But it has given me much discomfort. In 
that book he says that it is immoral for any one to 
do less than his best. I can scarcely think of that 
statement without feeling that I ought to be sent to 
jail. I'm actually burdened with immorality, and find 
myself all the while between the "devil and the deep 
sea," the "devil" of work, and the "deep sea" of im- 
moraUty. I suppose that's why I talk so much about 
being busy, trying to free myself from the charge of 
immorality. I think it was Virgil who said Facilis 
descensus Averno, and I suppose Mr. Henderson, in 
his statement, is trying to save me from the inconve- 
niences of this trip. I suppose I ought to be grateful 
to him for the hint, but I just can't get any great com- 
fort in such a close situation. 

I know I must work or go hungry, and I can stand 

a certain amount of fasting, but to be stamped as 

immoral because I am fasting rather hurts my pride. 

I'd much rather have my going hungry accounted a 

92 



SINNERS 

virtue, and receive praise and bouquets. When I am 
in a lounging mood it isn't any fun to have some 
Henderson come along and tell me that I am in need 
of a revival. A copy of "Baedeker" in hand, I have 
gone through a gallery of statues but did not find a 
sinner in the entire company. The originals may have 
been sinners, but not these marble statues. That is 
some comfort. To be a sinner one must be animate 
at the very least. I'd rather be a sinner, even, than 
a mummy or a statue. St. Paul wrote to Timothy: 
"I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, 
I have kept the faith." There was nothing of the 
mummy or the statue in him. He was just a straight- 
away sinful man, and a glorious sinner he was. 

I hke to think of Titian and Michael Angelo. When 
their work was done and they stood upon the summit 
of their achievements they were up so high that all 
they had to do was to step right into heaven, without 
any long journey. Tennyson did the same. In his 
poem, "Crossing the Bar," he filled all the space, and 
so he had to cross over into heaven to get more room. 
And Riley's "Old Aunt Mary" was another one. She 
had been working out her salvation making jelly, and 
jam, and marmalade, and just beaming goodness upon 
those boys so that they had no more doubts about 
goodness than they had of the peach preserves they 
were eating. Why, there just had to be a heaven for 
93 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

old Aunt Mary. She gathered manna every day, and 
had some for the boys, too, but never said a word 
about being busy. 

When I was reading the Georgics with my boys, we 
came upon the word bufo (toad), and I told them with 
much gusto that that was the only place in the lan- 
guage where the word occurs. I had come upon this 
statement in a book that they did not have. Their 
looks spoke their admiration for the schoolmaster who 
could speak with authority. After they had gone 
their ways, two to Porto Rico, one to Chili, another 
to Brazil, and others elsewhere, I came upon the word 
hufo again in Ovid. I am still wondering what a 
schoolmaster ought to do in a case like that. Even 
if I had written to all those fellows acknowledging my 
error, it would have been too late, for they would, 
long before, have circulated the report all over South 
America and the United States that there is but one 
toad in the Latin language. If I hadn't believed 
everything I see in print, hadn't been so cock-sure, and 
hadn't been so ready to parade borrowed plumage as 
my own, all this linguistic coil would have been averted. 
I suppose Mr. Henderson would send me to jail again 
for this. I certainly didn't do my best, and therefore I 
am immoral, and therefore a sinner; quod erat demon- 
strandum. 

So, I suppose, if I'm to save my soul, I must gather 
94 



SINNERS 

manna every day, and if I find the value of x to-day, 
I must find the value of a bigger x to-morrow. Then, 
too, I suppose I'll have to choose between Mrs. Wiggs 
and^Emerson, between the Katzenjammers and Shake- 
speare, and between ragtime and grand opera. I am 
very certain gi'owing corn gives forth a sound only I 
can't hear it. If my hearing were only acute enough 
I'd hear it and rejoice in it. It is very trying to miss 
the sound when I am so certain that it is there. The 
bu'ds in my trees understand one another, and yet I 
can't understand what they are saying in the least. 
This simply proves my own Limitations. If I could 
but know their language, and all the languages of the 
cov/s, the sheep, the horses, and the chickens, what a 
good time I could have with them. If my powers of 
sight and hearing were increased only tenfold, I'd 
surely find a difi'erent world about me. Here, again, 
I can't find the value of x, try as I will. 

The disquieting thing about all this is that I do not 
use to the utmost the powers I have. I could see 
many more things than I do if I'd only use my eyes, 
and hear things, too, if I'd try more. The world of 
nature as it reveals itself to John Burroughs is a thou- 
sand times larger than my world, no doubt, and this 
fact convicts me of doing less than my best, and again 
the jail invites me. 



95 



CHAPTER XV 

HOEING ror ATOES 

AS I was lying in the j?luuie of the maple-tree down 
-^^ there by the ravine, yesterday, I fell to thinkinii; 
about my rights, and the longer I lay there the more 
puzzled I became. Being a citizen in a democracy, 
I have many rights that are guaranteed to me by the 
Constitution, notably life, liberty, and the pursuit of 
happiness. In my school I become expansive in ex- 
tolling these rights to my pupils. But under that 
maple-tree I found myself raising many questions as 
to these rights, and many others. I have a right to 
sing tenor, but I can't suig tenor at all, and when I 
try it I disturb my neighboi-s. Right there I bump 
against a situation. I have a right to use my knife 
at table instead of a fork, and who is to gahisay my 
using m}^ jBngers? Queen Elizabeth did. I certainly 
have a right to lie in the shade of the maple-tree for 
two hours to-day instead of one hour, as I did yestei*- 
daj'. I wonder if rechning on the grass under a maple- 
tree is not a part of the pursuit of happmess that is 
specifically set out in the Constitution? I hope so, 
for I'd like to have that wonderful Constitution back- 
96 



HOEING POTATOES 

ing me up in the things I like to do. The sun is so 
hot and hoeing potatoes is such a tiring task that I 
prefer to lounge in the shade with my back against the 
Constitution. 

In thinking of the pursuit of happiness I am incUned 
to personify happiness and then watch the chase, won- 
dering whether the pursuer will ever overtake her, and 
what he'll do when he does. I note that the Con- 
stitution doas not guarantee that the pursuer will ever 
catch her — but just gives him an open field and no 
favors. He may run just as fast as he likes, and as 
long as his endurance holds out. I suspect that's 
where the liberty comes in. I wonder if the makers 
of the Constitution ever visualized that chase. If so, 
they must have laughed, at least in their sleeves, solemn 
crowd that they were. If I were certain that I could 
overtake happiness I'd gladly join m the pursuit, even 
on such a warm day as this, but the dread uncertainty 
makes me prefer to loll here in the shade. Besides, 
I'm not quite certain that I could recognize her even 
if I could catch her. The photographs that I have 
seen are so very different that I might mistake happi- 
ness for some one else, and that would be embarrassing. 

If I should conclude that I was happy, and then 
discover that I wasn't, I scarcely see how I could ex- 
plain myself to myself, much less to others. So I 
shall go on hoeing my potatoes and not bother my 
97 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

poor head about happiness. It is just possible that 
I shall find it over there in the potato-patch, for its 
latitude and longitude have never been definitely de- 
termined, so far as I am aware. I know I shall find 
some satisfaction over there at work, and I am con- 
vinced that satisfaction and happiness are kinsfolk. 
Possibly my potatoes will prove the answer to some 
mother's prayer for food for her Uttle ones next winter. 
Who knows ? As I loosen the soil about the vines I can 
look dowTi the vista of the months, and see some little 
one in his high chair smiling through his tears as 
mother prepares one of my beautiful potatoes for him, 
and I think I can detect some moisture in mother's 
eyes, too. It is just possible that her tears are the 
consecrated incense upon the altar of thanksgiving. 

I like to see such pictures as I ply my hoe, for they 
give me respite from weariness, and give fresh ardor 
to my hoeing. If each one of my potatoes shall only 
assuage the hunger of some Uttle one, and cause the 
mother's eyes to distil tears of joy, I shall be in the 
border-land of happiness, to say the least. I had fuljy 
intended to exercise my inalienable rights and lie in 
the shade for two hours to-day, but when I caught a 
glimpse of that little chap in the high chair, and heard 
his pitiful plea for potatoes, I made for the potato- 
patch post-haste, as if I were responding to a hurry 
call. I suppose there is no more heart-breaking sound 



HOEING POTATOES 

in nature than the crying of a hungry child. I have 
been whistling all the afternoon along with my hoeing, 
and now that I think of it, I must be whistling because 
my pototoes are going to make that baby laugh. 

Well, if they do, then I shall elevate the hoeing of 
potatoes to the rank of a privilege. Oh, I've read my 
"Tom Sawyer," and know about his enterprise in get- 
ting the fence whitewashed by making the task seem 
a privilege. But Tom was indulging in fiction, and 
hoeing potatoes is no fiction. Still those whitewash 
artists had something of the feeling that I experience 
right now, only there was no baby in their picture as 
there is in mine, and so I have the baby as an addi- 
tional privilege. I wish I knew how to make all the 
school tasks rank as privileges to my boys and girls. 
If I could only do that, they would have gone far 
toward a liberal education. If I could only get a 
baby to crying somewhere out beyond cube root I'm 
sure they would struggle through the mazes of that 
subject, somehow, so as to get to the baby to change 
its crying into laughter. 'Tis worth trying. 

I wonder, after all, whether education is not the 
process of shifting the emphasis from rights to priv- 
ileges. I have a right, when I go into the town, to 
keep my seat in the car and let the old lady use the 
strap. If I insist upon that right I feel myself a boor, 
lacking the sense and sensibilities of a gentleman. 
99 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

But when I relinquish my seat I feel that I have exer- 
cised my privilege to be considerate and courteous. 
1 have a right to permit weeds and briers to overrun 
my fences, mid the fences themselves to go to rack, 
and so offend the sight of my neighbors; but I esteem 
it a privilege to make the premises clean and beautiful, 
so as to add so much to the sum total of pleasure. I 
have a right to stay on my own side of the road and 
keep to myself; but it is a great privilege to go up 
for a half-hour's exchange of talk with my neighbor 
John. He always clears the cobwebs from my ejTS and 
from my soul, and I return to my work refreshed. 

I have a right, too, to pore over the colored supple- 
ment for an hour or so, but when I am able to rise to 
my privileges and take the Book of Job instead, I feel 
that I have made a gain in self-respect, and can stand 
more nearly erect. I have a right, when I go to church, 
to sit silent and look bored; but, when I avail myself 
of the privilege of jouiing in the responses and the 
singing, I feel that I am fertilizing my spirit for the 
truth that is proclaimed. As a citizen I have certain 
rights, but when I come to think of my privileges my 
rights seem puny in comparison. Then, too, my rights 
inc such cold things, but my privileges are full of sun- 
shine and of joy. My rights seem mathematical, while 
my privileges seem curves of beauty. 

In his scientific laboratory at Princeton, on one 
100 



HOEING POTATOES 

occaRion, the celobrated Doctor Uodgo, in preparing 
for an experiment said to some Ktudents who were 
gathered about him: "Gentlemen, please remove your 
hats; I am about to ask God a question.'* So it is 
with every one who esteems his privileges. He is 
asking God questions about the glory of the sunrise, 
the fragrance of the flowers, the colors of the rainbow, 
the music of the brook, and the meaning of the stars. 
But I hear a baby crying and must get back to my 
potatoes. 



101 



CHAPTER XVI 

CHANGING THE MIND 

T HAVE been reading, in this book, of a man who 
-*■ couldn't change his mind because his intellectual 
wardrobe was not sufficient to warrant a change. I 
was feeling downright sorry for the poor feUow till I 
got to wondering how many people are feeling sorry 
for me for the same reason. That reflection changed 
the situation greatly, and I began to feel some resent- 
ment against the blunt statement in the book as being 
rather too personal. Just as I begin to think that we 
have standardized a lot of things, along comes some one 
in a book, or elsewhere, and completely upsets my fine 
and comforting theories and projects me into chaos 
again. No sooner do I get a lot of facts all nicely set- 
tled, and begin to enjoy complacency, than some dis- 
turber of the peace knocks all my facts topsy-turvy, and 
says they are not facts at aU, but the merest fiction. 
Then I cry aloud with my old friend Cicero, Ubinam 
gentium sumus, which, being translated in the language 
of the boys, means, "Where in the world (or nation) 
are we at?" They are actually trying to reform my 
spelling. I do wish these reformers had come around 
sooner, when I was learning to spell phthisic, syzygy, 
daguerreotype, and caoutchouc. They might have saved 
102 



CHANGING THE MIND 

me a deal of trouble and helped me over some of the 
high places at the old-fashioned spelling-bees. 

I have a friend who is quite versed in science, and 
he tells me that any book on science that is more than 
ten years old is obsolete. Now, that puzzles me no 
little. If that is true, why don't they wait till matters 
scientific are settled, and then write their books ? Why 
write a book at all when you know that day after to- 
morrow some one will come along and refute all the 
theories and mangle the facts? These science chaps 
must spend a great deal of their time changing their 
intellectual clothing. It would be great fun to come 
back a hundred years from now and read the books on 
science, psychology, and pedagogy. I suppose the 
books we have now will seem like joke books to our 
great-grandchildren, if people are compelled to change 
their mental garments every day from now on. I 
wonder how long it will take us human coral insects 
to get our building up to the top of the water. 

Whoever it was that said that consistency is a jewel 
would need to take treatment for his eyes in these 
days. If I must change my mental garb each day 
I don't see how I can be consistent. If I said yester- 
day that some theory of science is the truth, the whole 
truth, and nothing but the truth, and then find a re- 
vision of the statement necessary to-day, I certainly 
am inconsistent. This jewel of consistency certainly 
103 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

loses its lustre, if not its identity, in such a process of 
shifting. I do hope these chameleon artists will leave 
us the multiplication table, the yardstick, and the 
ablative absolute. I'm not so particular about the 
wine-gallon, for prohibition wiU probably do away with 
that anyhow. When I was in school I could tell to a 
foot the equatorial and the polar diameter of the earth, 
and what makes the difference. Why, I knew all about 
that flattening at the poles, and how it came about. 
Then Mr. Peary went up there and tramped all over 
the north pole, and never said a word about the 
flattening when he came back. I was very much dis- 
appointed in Mr. Peary. 

I know, quite as well as I know my own name, that 
the length of the year is three hundred and sixty-five 
days, five hours, forty-eight minutes, and forty-eight 
seconds, and if I find any one trying to lop off even 
one second of my hard-learned year, I shall look upon 
him as a meddler. That is one of my settled facts, 
and I don't care to have it disturbed. If any one 
comes along trying to change the length of my year, 
I shall begin to tremble for the safety of the Ten 
Commandments. If I believe that a grasshopper is a 
quadruped, what satisfaction could I possibly take in 
discovering that he has six legs? It would merely dis- 
turb one of my settled facts, and I am more interested 
in my facts than I am in the grasshopper. The trouble 
104 



CHANGING THE MIND 

is, though, that my neighbor John keeps referring to 
the grasshopper's six legs; so I suppose I shall, in the 
end, get me a grasshopper suit of clothes so as to be 
in the fashion. 

This discarding of my four-legged grasshopper and 
supplying myself with one that has six legs may be 
what the poet means when he speaks of our dead 
selves. He may refer to the new suit of mental cloth- 
ing that I am supposed to get each day, to the change 
of mind that I am supposed to undergo as regularly as 
a daily bath. Possibly Mr. Holmes meant something 
like that when he wrote his "Chambered Nautilus." 
At each advance from one of these compartments to 
another, I suppose I acquire a new suit of clothes, or, 
in other words, change my mind. Let's see, wasn't 
it Theseus whose eternal punishment in Hades was 
just to sit there forever? That seems somewhat 
heavenly to me. But here on earth I suppose I must 
try to keep up with the styles, and change my mental 
gear day by day. 

I think I might come to enjoy a change of suits 
every day if only some one would provide them for 
me; but, if I must earn them myself, the case is differ- 
ent. I'd like to have some one bestow upon me a 
beautiful Greek suit for Monday, with its elegance, 
grace, and dignity, a Roman suit for Tuesday, a science 
suit for Wednesday, a suit of poetry for Thursday, and 
105 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

so on, day after day. But when I must read all of 
Homer before I can have the Greek suit, the price 
seems a bit stif!', and I'm not so avid about changing 
my mind. We had a township picnic back home, once, 
and it seemed to me that I was attending a congress 
of nations, for there were people there who had driven 
five or six miles from the utmost bounds of the town- 
ship. That was a real mental adventure, and it took 
some time for me to adjust myself to my new suit. 
Then I went to the county fair, where were gathered 
people from all the townships, and my poor mind had 
a mighty struggle trying to grasp the iromensity of the 
thing. I felt much the same as when I was trying to 
understand the mathematical sign of infinity. And 
when I came upon the statement, in my geography, 
that there are eighty-eight counties in our State, the 
mind balked absolutely and refused to go on. I felt 
as did the old gentleman who saw an aeroplane for the 
first time. After watching its gyrations for some tune 
he finally exclaimed: "They ain't no sich thing.'* 

My college roommate. Mack, went over to London, 
once, on some errand, and of course went to the 
British Museum. Near the entrance he came upon 
the Rosetta Stone, and stood inthralled. He reflected 
that he was standing in the presence of a monument 
that marks the begimiing of recorded history, that 
back of that all was dark, and that all the books in 
106 



CHANGING THE MIND 

all the libraries emanate from that beginning. The 
thought was so big, so overmastering, that there was 
no room in his mind for anything else, so he turned 
about and left without seeing anything else in the 
Museum. Since then we have had many a big laugh 
together as he recounts to me his wonderful visit to 
the Rosetta Stone. I see clearly that in the presence 
of that modest stone he got aU the mental clothing he 
could possibly wear at the time. Changing the mind 
sometimes seems to amount almost to surgery. 

Sometime, if I can get my stub pen limbered up I 
shall try my hand at writing a bit of a composition on 
the subject of "The Inequality of Equals." I know 
that the Declaration tells us that all men are born 
free and equal, and I shall explain in my essay that it 
means us to understand that while they are born 
equal, they begin to become unequal the day after 
they are born, and become more so as one changes his 
mind and the other one does not. I try, all the while, 
to make myself believe that I am the equal of my 
neighbor, the judge, and then I feel foolish to think 
that I ever tried it. The neighbors all know it isn't 
true, and so do I when I quit arguing with myself. 
He has such a long start of me now that I wonder if 
I can ever overtake him. One thing, though, I'm re- 
solved upon, and that is to change my mind as often 
as possible. 

107 



CHAPTER XVII 

THE POINT OF VIEW 

TUST why a boy is averse to washing his neck and 
^ ears is one of the deep problems of social psy- 
chology, and yet the psychologists have veered away 
from the subject. There must be a reason, and these 
mind experts ought to be able and willing to find it, so 
as to relieve the anxiety of the rest of us. It is easy 
for me to say, with a full-arm gesture, that a boy is 
of the earth earthy, but that only begs the question, 
as full-arm gestures are wont to do. Many a boy 
has shed copious tears as he sat on a bench outside the 
kitchen door removing, under compulsion, the day's 
accumulations from his feet as a prerequisite for re- 
tiring. He would much prefer to sleep on the floor to 
escape the foot-washing ordeal. Why, pray, should 
he wash his feet when he knows full well that to- 
morrow night will find them in the same condition? 
Why all the bother and trouble about a little thing like 
that? Why can't folks let a fellow alone, anyhow? 
And, besides, he went in swimming this afternoon, and 
that surely ought to meet all the exactions of capricious 
parents. He exhibits his feet as an evidence of the 
108 



THE POINT OF VIEW 

virtue of going swimming, for he is arranging the pre- 
liminaries for another swimming expedition to-morrow. 

I recall very distinctly how strange it seemed that 
my father could sit there and calmly talk about being 
a Democrat, or a Republican, or a Baptist, or a Meth- 
odist, or about some one's discovering the north pole, 
or about the President's message when the dog had a 
rat cornered under the corn-crib and was barking like 
mad. But, then, parents can't see things in their 
right relations and proportions. And there sat 
mother, too, darning stockings, and the dog just stark 
crazy about that rat. 'Tis enough to make a boy lose 
faith in parents forevermore. A dog, a rat, and a boy 
— there's a combination that recks not of the fall of 
empires or the tottering of thrones. Even chicken- 
noodles must take second place in such a scheme of 
world activities. And yet a mother would hold a boy 
back from the forefront of such an enterprise to wash 
his neck. Oh, these mothers ! 

I have read "Adam's Diary," by Mark Twain, in 
which he tells what events were forward in Eden on 
Monday, what on Tuesday, and so on throughout the 
week till he came to Sunday, and his only comment 
on that day was "Pulled through." In the New Eng- 
land Primer we gather the solemn information that 
"In Adam's fall, we sinned all." I admit the fact 
ireelj but beg to be permitted to plead extenuating 
109 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

circumstances. Adam could go to church just as he 
was, but I had to be renovated and, at times, almost 
parboiled and, in addition to these indignities, had 
to wear shoes and stockings; and the stockings 
scratched my legs, and the shoes were too tight. If 
Adam could barely manage to pull through, just think 
of me. Besides, Adam didn't have to wear a paper 
collar that disintegrated and smeared his neck. The 
more I thmk of Adam's situation, the more sorry I feel 
for myself. Why, he could just reach out and pluck 
some fruit to help him through the services, but I had 
to walk a mile after church, in those tight shoes, and 
then wait an hour for dinner. And I was supposed 
to feel and act religious while I was waiting, but I 
didn^t. 

If I could only have gone to church barefoot, with 
my shirt open at the throat, and with a pocket full of 
cookies to munch ad lib throughout the services, I am 
sure that the spiritual uplift would have been greater. 
The soul of a boy doesn't expand violently when en- 
cased in a starched shirt and a paper collar, and these 
surmounted by a thick coat, with the mercury at ninety- 
seven in the shade. I think I can trace my religious 
retardation back to those hungry Sundays, those tight 
shoes, that warm coat, and those frequent jabs in my 
ribs when I fain would have slept. 

In my childhood there was such a host of people 
110 



THE POINT OF VIEW 

who were pushing and puHing me about in an effort 
to make me good that, even yet, I shy away from their 
style of goodness. The wonder is that I have any 
standing at all in polite and upright society. So many 
folks said I was bad and naughty, and applied so many 
other no less approbrious epithets to me that, in time, 
I came to believe them, and tried somewhat diligently 
to live up to the reputation they gave me. I recall 
that one of my aunts came in one day and, seeing me 
out in the yard most ingloriously tousled, asked my 
good mother: "Is that your child?" Poor mother! 
I have often wondered how much travail of spirit it 
must have cost her to acknowledge me as her very 
own. One thumb, one great toe, and an ankle were 
decorated with greasy rags, and I was far from being 
ornamental. I had been hulling walnuts, too, and my 
stained hands served to accentuate the human scenery. 
This same aunt had three boys of her own, later on, 
and a more disreputable-looking crew it would be hard 
to find. I confess that I took a deal of grim satisfac- 
tion in their dilapidated ensemble, just for my aunt's 
benefit, of course. They were fine, wholesome, 
natural boys in spite of their parentage, and I liked 
them even while I gloried in then- cuts, bruises, and 
dirt. At that time I was wearing a necktie and had 
my shoes polished but, even so, I yearned to join with 
them in their debauch of sand, mud, and general in- 
Ill 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

difference to convention. They are fine, upstanding 
young chaps now, and of course their mother thinks 
that her scolding, nagging, and baiting made them so. 
They know better, but are too kind and considerate to 
reveal the truth to their mother. 

Even yet I have something like admiration for the 
ingenuity of my elders in conjuring up spooks, hob- 
goblins, and bugaboos with which to scare me into 
submission. I conformed, of course, but I never gave 
them a high grade in veracity. I yielded simply to 
gain time, for I knew where there was a chipmunk in 
a hole, and was eager to get to digging him out just as 
soon as my apparent submission for a brief time had 
proved my complete regeneration. They used to tell 
me that children should be seen but not heard, and I 
knew they wanted to do the talking. I often wonder 
whether their notion of a good child would have been 
satisfactorily met if I had suddenly become paralyzed, 
or ossified, or petrified. In either of these cases I 
could have been seen but not heard. One day, not 
long ago, when I felt at peace with all the world and 
was comfortably free from care, a small, thumb- 
sucking seven-year-old asked: ''How long since the 
world was born?" After I told him that it was about 
four thousand years he worked vigorously at his 
thumb for a time, and then said: "That isn't very 
long." Then I wished I had said four milHons, so as 
112 



THE POINT OF VIEW 

to reduce him to silence, for one doesn't enjoy being 
routed and put to confusion by a seven-year-old. 
After quite a silence he asked again: "What was there 
before the world was born?" That was an easy one; 
so I said in a tone of finality: "There wasn't any- 
thing." Then I went on with my meditations, think- 
ing I had used the soft pedal effectively. Silence 
reigned supreme for some minutes, and then was 
rudely shattered. His thumb flew from his mouth, 
and he laughed so lustily that he could be heard 
throughout the house. When his laughter had spent 
itself somewhat, I asked meekly: "What are you laugh- 
ing at?" His answer came on the instant, but still 
punctuated with laughter: "I was laughing to see how 
funny it was when there wasn't anything." No won- 
der that follcs want children to be seen but not heard. 
And some folks are scandalized because a chap like 
that doesn't like to wash his neck and ears. 



113 



CHAPTER XVIII 
PICNICS 

THE code of table etiquette in the days of my boy- 
hood, as I now recall it, was expressed something 
like: *'Eat what is set before you and ask no ques- 
tions." We heeded this injunction with religious 
fidelity, but yearned to ask w^hy they didn't set more 
before us. About the only time that a real boy gets 
enough to eat is when he goes to a picnic and, even there 
and then, the rounding out of the programme is con- 
nected with clandestine visits to the baskets after the 
formal ceremonies have been concluded. At a picnic 
there is no such expression as "from soup to nuts," 
for there is no soup, and perhaps no nuts, but there 
is everything else in tantalizing abundance. If I find 
a plate of deviled eggs near me, I begin with deviled 
eggs; or, if the cold tongue is neai'er, I begin with 
that. In this way I reveal, for the pleasure of the host- 
esses, my unrestricted and democratic appetite. Or, 
in order to obviate any possible embarrassment dur- 
ing the progress of the chicken toward me, I may take 
a piece of pie or a slice of cake, thinking that they may 
not return once they have been put in circulation. 
114 



PICNICS 

Certainly I take jelly when it passes along, as well as 
pickles, olives, and cheese. There is no incongruity, 
at such a time, in having a slice of baked ham and a 
slice of angel-food cake on one's plate or in one's hands. 
They harmonize beautifully both in the color scheme 
and in the gastronomic scheme. At a picnic my boy- 
hood training reaches its full fruition: "Eat what is 
set before you and ask no questions." These things 
I do. 

That's a good rule for reading, too, just to read 
what is set before you and ask no questions. I'm 
thinking now of the reader member of my dual nature, 
not the student member. I like to cater somewhat 
to both these members. When the reader member 
is having his inning, I Uke to give him free rein and 
not hamper him by any lock-step or stereotyped 
method or course. I like to lead him to a picnic table 
and dismiss him with the mere statement that "Heaven 
helps those who help themselves," and thus leave him 
to his own devices. If Southey's, "The Curse of 
Kehama," happens to be nearest his plate, he will 
naturally begin with that as I did with the deviled 
eggs. Or he may nibble at "The House-Boat on the 
Styx" while some one is passing the Shakespeare along. 
He may like Emerson, and ask for a second helping, 
and that's all right, too, for that's a nourishing sort of 
food. Having partaken of this generously, he will 
115 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

enjoy all the more the jelly when it comes along in the 
form of "Nonsense Anthology." The more I think 
of it the more I see that reading is very like a picnic 
dinner. It is all good, and one takes the food which 
is nearest him, whether pie or pickles. 

When any one asks me what I am reading, I become 
much embarrassed. I may be reading a catalogue of 
books at the time, or the book notices in some maga- 
zine, but such reading may not seem orthodox at all 
to the one who asks the question. My reading may 
be too desultory or too personal to be paraded in public. 
I don't make it a practice to tell all the neighbors what 
I ate for breakfast. I like to saunter along through 
the book just as I ride in a gondola when in Venice. 
I'm not going anywhere, but get my enjoyment from 
merely being on the way. I pay the gondolier and then 
let him have his own way with me. So with the book. 
I pay the money and then abandon myself to it. If 
it can make me laugh, why, well and good, and I'll 
laugh. If it causes me to shed tears, why, let the tears 
flow. They may do me good. If I ever become con- 
scious of the number of the page of the book I am 
reading, I know there is something the matter with 
that book or else with me. If I ever become con- 
scious of the page number in David Grayson's 
"Adventures in Contentment," or "The Friendly 
Road," I shall certainly consult a physician. I do 
IIG 



PICNICS 

become semiconscious at times that I am approaching 
the end of the feast, and feel regi-et that the book is 
not larger. 

I have spasms and enjoy them. Sometimes, I have 
a Dickens spasm, and read some of his books for the 
n*^ time. I have frittered away much time in my life 
trying to discover whether a book is worth a second 
reading. If it isn't, it is hardly worth a first reading, 
I don't get tired of my friend Brown, so why should 
I put Dickens off with a mere society call ? If I didn't 
enjoy Brown I'd not visit him so frequently; but, 
liking him, I go again and again. So with Dickens, 
Mark Twain, and Shakespeare. The story goes that 
a second Uncle Remus was sitting on a stump in the 
depths of a forest sawing away on an old discordant 
violin. A man, who chanced to come upon him, asked 
what he was doing. With no interruption of his 
musical activities, he answered: "Boss, I'se serenadin' 
m' soul." Book or violin, 'tis all the same. Uncle 
Remus and I are serenading our souls and the exercise 
is good for us. 

I was laid by with typhoid fever for a few weeks 
once, and the doctor came at eleven o'clock in the 
morning and at five o'clock in the afternoon. If he 
happened to be a bit late I grew impatient, and my 
fever increased. He discovered this fact, and was no 
more tardy. He was reading "John Fiske" at the 
117 



REVERIES OF A SCTTOOLMASTER 

time, and Grant's "Memoirs/' and at each visit re- 
viewed for me what he had read since the previous visit. 
He must have been glad when I no longer needed to 
take my history by proxy, for I kept him up to the 
mark, aiid bullied him hito reciting twice a day. I 
don't know what drugs he gave me, but I do know 
that "Fiske" and ''Grant" are good for typhoid, and 
heartily commend them to the general public. I am 
rather glad now that I had typhoid fever. 

I listen with amused tolerance to people who grow 
voluble on the weather and their symptoms, and often 
'\^^sh they would ask me to prescribe for them. I'd 
probably tell them to become readers of William J. 
I.ocke. But, perhaps, their sjnnptoms might seem 
preferable to the remedy. A neighbor came in to 
borrow a book, and I gave her "Les Miserables," which 
she returned in a day or so, saying that she could not 
read it. I knew that I had overestimated her, and 
that I didn't have a book around of her size. I had 
loaned my "Robin Hood," "Rudder Grange," "Uncle 
Remus," and "Sonny" to the children round about. 

I like to browse around among my books, and am 
trying to have my boys and girls acquire the same habit. 
Reading for pure enjoyment isn't a formal affair any 
more than eating. Sometimes I feel in the mood for a 
grapefruit for breakfiist, sometimes for an orange, and 
sometimes for neither. I'm glad not to board at a 
118 



PICNICS 

place where they have standardized breakfasts and 
reading. If I feel in the mood for an orange I want an 
orange, even if my neighbor has a casaba melon. So, 
if I want my "Middlemarch," I'm quite eager for that 
book, and am quite willing for my neighbor to have 
his "Henry Esmond." The appetite for books is 
variable, the same as for food, and I'd rather consult 
my appetite than my neighbor when choosing a book 
as a companion through a lazy afternoon beneath the 
maple-tree. I refuse to try to supervise the reading 
of my pupils. Why, I couldn't supervise their eating. 
I'd have to find out whether the boy was yearning for 
porterhouse steak or ice-cream, first; then I might help 
him make a selection. The best I can do is to have 
plenty of steak, potatoes, pie, and ice-cream around, 
and allow him to help himself. 



119 



CHAPTER XIX 
MAKE-BELIEVE 

THE text may be found in "Over Bemerton's/' 
by E. V. Lucas, and reads as follows: "A gentle 
hypocrisy is not only the basis but the salt of civilized 
life." This statement startled me a bit at first; but 
when I got to thinking of my experience in having a 
photograph of myself made I saw that Mr. Lucas has 
some warrant for his statement. There has been only 
one Oliver Cromwell to say: " Paint me as I am." The 
rest of us humans prefer to have the wart omitted. 
If my photograph is true to life I don't want it. I'm 
going to send it away, and I don't want the folks who 
get it to think I look like that. If I were a woman and 
could wear a disguise of cosmetics when sitting for a 
picture the case might not be quite so bad. The subtle 
flattery of the photograph is very grateful to us mortals 
whether we admit it or not. My friend Baxter intro- 
duced me once as a man who is not two-faced, and went 
on to explain that if I had had two faces Fd have 
brought the other instead of this one. And that's 
true. I expect the photographer to evoke another face 
for me, and hence my generous gift of money to him. 
120 



MAKE-BELIEVE 

I like that chap immensely. He takes my money, 
gives me another face, bows me out with the grace of 
a finished courtier, and never, by word or look, reveals 
his knowledge of my hypocrisy. 

As a boy I had a full suit of company manners which 
I wore only when guests were present, and so was 
always sorry to have guests come. I sat back on the 
chair mstead of on its edge; I didn't swing my legs 
unless I had a lapse of memory; I said, "Yes, ma'am," 
and, ''No, ma'am," like any other parrot, just as I did 
at rehearsal; and, in short, I was a most exemplary 
child save for occasional reactions to unlooked-for 
situations. The folks knew I was posing, and were on 
nettles all the while from fear of a breakdown; the 
guests knew I was posing, and I knew I was posing. 
But we all pretended to one another that that was the 
regular order of procedure in our house. So we had 
a very gratifying concert exercise in hypocrisy. We 
said our prayers that night just as usual. 

With such thorough training in my youth it is not 
at all strange that I now consider myself rather an 
adept in the prevailuig social usages. At a musicale 
I applaud fit to blister my hands, even though I feel 
positively pugnacious. But I know the singer has an 
encore prepared, and I feel that it would be ungracious 
to disappoint her. Besides, I argue with myself that 
I can stand it for five minutes more if the others can. 
121 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

Professor James, I think it is, says that we ought to 
do at least one disagreeable thing each day as an aid 
in the development of character. Being rather keen 
on character development, I decide on a double dose 
of the disagreeable while opportunity favors. Hence 
my vigorous applauding. Then, too, I realize that the 
time and place are not opportune for an expression of 
my honest convictions; so I choose the line of least 
resistance and well-nigh blister my hands to emphasize 
my hypocrisy. 

At a formal dinner I have been known to sink so 
low into the depths of hypocrisy as to eat shrimp 
salad. But when one is sitting next to a lady who 
seems a confirmed celibate, and who seems to find 
nothing better than to become voluble on the subject 
of her distinguished ancestors, even shrimp salad has 
its uses. Now, under normal conditions my per- 
verted and plebeian taste regards shrimp salad as a 
banality, but at that dinner I ate it with apparent 
relish, and tried not to make a wry face. But, worst 
of all, I complimented the hostess upon the excellence 
of the dinner, and extolled the salad particularly, al- 
though we both knew that the salad was a failure, and 
that the dinner itself convicted the cook of a lack of 
experience or else of a superfluity of potations. 

When the refreshments are served I take a thimble- 
ful of ice-cream and an attenuated wafer, and then 
122 



MAKE-BELIEVE 

solemnly declare to the maid that I have been abun- 
dantly served. In the hallowed precincts that I call 
my den I could absorb nine rations such as they 
served and never bat an eye. And yet, in making 
my adieus to the hostess, I thank her most effusively 
for a delightful evening, refreshments included, and 
then hurry grumbling home to get something to eat. 
Such are some of the manifestations of social hypocrisy. 
These all pass current at their face value, and yet we 
all know that nobody is deceived. Still it is great 
fun to play make-believe, and the world would have 
convulsions if we did not indulge in these pleasing de- 
ceptions. In the clever little book "Molly Make- 
Believe" the girl pretends at first that she loves the 
man, and later on comes to love him to distraction, 
and she lived happy ever after, too. When, in my 
fever, I would ask about my temperature, the nurse 
would give a numeral about two degrees below the 
real record to encourage me, and I can't think that 
St. Peter will bar her out just for that. 

The psychologists give mild assent to the theory 
that a physical attitude may generate an emotion. 
If I assume a belligerent attitude, they claim that, in 
time, I shall feel really belligerent; that in a loafing 
attitude I shall presently be loafing; and that, if I 
assume the attitude of a listener, I shall soon be listen- 
ing most intently. This seems to be justified by the 
123 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

experiences of Edwin Booth on the stage. He could 
feign fighting for a time, and then it became real fight- 
ing, and great care had to be taken to avert disastrous 
consequences when his sword fully struck its gait. I 
believe the psychologists have never fully agreed on 
the question whether the man is running from the bear 
because he is scared or is scared because he is running. 

I dare say Mr. Shakespeare was trying to express 
this theory when he said: "Assume a virtue, though 
you have it not." That's exactly what I'm trying to 
have my pupils do all the while. I'm trying to have 
them wear their company manners continually, so that, 
in good time, they will become their regular working 
garb. I'm glad to have them assume the attitudes of 
diligence and politeness, thinking that their attitudes 
may generate the corresponding emotions. It is a 
severe strain on a boy at times to seem polite when 
he feels like hurling missiles. We both know that 
his politeness is mere make-believe, but we pretend 
not to know, and so move along our ways of hypocrisy 
hoping that good may come. 

There is a telephone-girl over in the central station, 
wherever that is, who certainly is beautiful if the voice 
is a true index. Her tones are dulcet, and her voice 
is so mellow and well modulated that I visualize her 
as another Venus. I suspect that, when she began her 
work, some one told her that her tenure of position 
124 



MAKE-BELIEVE 

depended upon the quality of her voice. So, I imagine, 
she assumed a tonal quality of voice that was really 
a subUmated hypocrisy, and persisted in this until now 
that quality of voice is entirely natural. I can't think 
that Shakespeare had her specially in mind, but, if I 
ever have the good fortune to meet her, I shall certainly 
ask her if she reads Shakespeare. Now that I think of 
it, I shall try this treatment on my own voice, for it 
sorely needs treatment. Possibly I ought to take a 
course of training at the telephone-station. 

I am now thoroughly persuaded that Mr. Lucas 
gave expression to a great principle of pedagogy in 
what he said about hypocrisy, and I shall try to be 
diligent in applying it. If I can get my boys to as- 
sume an arithmetical attitude, they may come to have 
an arithmetical feeUng, and that would give me great 
joy. I don't care to have them express their honest 
feelings either about me or the work, but would rather 
have them look polite and interested, even if it is hy- 
pocrisy. I'd like to have all my boys and girls act as 
if they consider me absolutely fair, just, and upright, 
as well as the most kind, courteous, generous, scholarly, 
skillful, and complaisant schoolmaster that ever lived, 
no matter what they reaUy think. 



125 



CHAPTER XX 
BEHAVIOR 

IF I only knew how to teach English, I'd have far 
more confidence in my schoolmastering. But I 
don't seem to get on. The system breaks down too 
often to suit me. Just when I think I have some lad 
inoculated with elegant English through the process of 
reading from some classic, he says, "might of came," 
and I become obfuscated again. I have a book here 
in which I read that it is the business of the teacher 
so to organize the activities of the school that they will 
function in behavior. Well, my boys' behavior in the 
use of English indicates that I haven't organized the 
activities of my English class very effectively. I seem 
to be more of a success in a cherry-orchard than in 
an English class. My cherries are large and round, 
a joy to the eye and delightful to the taste. The fruit 
expert tells me they are perfect, and so I feel that I 
organized the activities in that orchard efficiently. In 
fact, the behavior of my cherry-trees is most grati- 
fying. But when I hear my pupils talk or read their 
essays, and find a deal of imperfect fruit in the way of 
solecisms and misspelled words, I feel inclined to dis- 
126 



BEHAVIOR 

credit my skill in organizing the activities in this 
human orchard. 

I think my trouble is (and it is trouble), that I pro- 
ceed upon the agreeable assumption that my pupils 
can "catch" English as they do the measles if only 
they are exposed to it. So I expose them to the ob- 
jective complement and the compellative, and then 
stand aghast at their behavior when they make all 
the mistakes that can possibly be made in using a 
given number of words. I have occasion to wonder 
whether I juggle these big words merely because I 
happen to see them in a book, or whether I am trying 
to be impressive. I recall how often I have felt a 
thrill of pride as I have ladled out deliberative sub- 
junctives, ethical datives, and hysteron proteron to 
my (supposedly) admiring Latin pupils. If I were a 
soldier I should want to wear one of those enormous 
three-story military hats to render me tall and im- 
pressive. I have no desire to see a drum-major minus 
his plumage. The disillusionment would probably be 
depressing. Liking to wear my shako, I must continue 
to talk of objective complements instead of using 
simple English. 

I had watched men make a hundred barrels, but 

when I tried my skill I didn't produce much of a 

barrel. Then I knew making barrels is not violently 

infectious. But I suspect that it is quite the same 

127 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

as English in this respect. My behavior in that cooper- 
shop, for a time, was quite destructive of materials, 
imtil I had acquired skill by much practice. 

If I could only organize the activities in my English 
class so that they would function in such behavior as 
Lincoln's "Letter to Mrs. Bixby," I should feel that I 
might continue my teaching instead of devoting all 
my time to my cherry-orchard. Or, if I could see that 
my pupils were acquiring the habit of correct English 
as the result of my work, I'd give myself a higher grade 
as a schoolmaster. My neighbor over here teaches 
agriculture, and one of his boys produced one hundred 
and fifty bushels of corn on an acre of ground. That's 
what I call excellent behavior, and that schoolmaster 
certainly knows how to organize the activities of his 
class. My boy's yield of thirty-seven bushels, mostly 
nubbins, does not compare favorably with the yield of 
his boy, and I feel that I ought to reform, or else wear 
a mask. Here is my boy saying "might of came," 
and his boy is raising a hundred and fifty bushels of 
corn per acre. 

If I could only assemble all my boys and girls twenty 
years hence and have them give an account of them- 
selves for all the years after they left school, I could 
grade them with greater accuracy than I can possibly 
do now. Of course, I'd simply grade them on behavior, 
and if I could muster up courage, I might ask them to 
128 



BEHAVIOR 

grade mine. I wonder how I'd feel if I'd find among 
them such folks as Edison, Burbank, Goethals, Clara 
Barton, and Frances Willard. My neighbor John 
says the most humiliating experience that a man can 
have is to wear a pair of his son's trousers that have 
been cut down to fit him. I might have some such 
feelings as that in the presence of pupils who had 
made such notable achievements. But, should they 
tell me that these achievements were due, in some good 
measure, to the work of the school, well, that would 
be glory enough for me. One of my boys was telling 
me only yesterday of a bit of work he did the day before 
in the way of revealing a process in chemistry to a 
firm of jewellers and hearing the superintendent say 
that that bit of information is worth a thousand dol- 
lars to the establishment. If he keeps on doing things 
like that I shall grade his behavior one of these days. 

I suppose Mr. Goethals must have learned the mul- 
tiplication table, once upon a time, and used it, too, 
in constructing the Panama Canal. He certainly 
made it effective, and the activities of that class in 
arithmetic certainly did function. I tell my boys that 
this multiplication table is the same one that Mr. 
Goethals has been using all the while, and then ask 
them what use they expect to make of it. One man 
made use of this table in tunnelling the Alps, and 
another in building the Brooklyn Bridge, and it seems 
129 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

to be good for many more bridges and tunnels if I can 
only organize the activities aright. 

I was standing in front of St. Marks, there in Venice, 
one morning, regaUng myself with the beauty of the 
festive scene, and talking to a friend, when four of 
my boys came strolling up, and they seemed more my 
boys than ever before. What a reunion we had ! The 
folks all about us didn't understand it in the least, 
but we did, and that was enough. I forgot my coarse 
clothes, my well-nigh empty pockets, my inability to 
buy the many beautiful things that kept tantalizing 
me, and the meagreness of my salary. These were all 
swallowed up in the joy of seeing the boys, and I 
wanted to proclaim to all and sundry: "These are 
my jewels." Those boys are noble, clean, upstanding 
fellows, and no schoolmaster could help being proud 
of them. Such as they nestle down in the heart of the 
schoolmaster and cause him to know that life is good. 

I was sorry not to be able to share my joy with my 
friend who stood near, but that could not be. I might 
have used words to him, but he would not have under- 
stood. He had never yearned over those fellows and 
watched them, day by day, hoping that they might 
grow up to be an honor to their school. He had never 
had the experience of watching from the schoolhouse 
window, fervently wishing that no harm might come 
to them, and that no shadows might come over their 
130 



BEHAVIOR 

lives. He had never known the joy of sitting up far 
into the night to prepare for the coming of those boys 
the next day. He had never seen their eyes sparkle 
in the classroom when, for them, truth became il- 
lumined. Of course, he stood aloof, for he couldn't 
know. Only the schoolmaster can ever know how 
those four boys became the focus of all that wondrous 
beauty on that splendid morning. If I had had my 
grade-book along I would have recorded their grades 
in behavior, for as I looked upon those glorious chaps 
and heard them recount their experiences I had a 
feeling of exaltation, knowing that the activities of our 
school had functioned in right behavior. 



131 



CHAPTER XXI 

FOREFINGERS 

T I iHIS left forefinger of mine is certainly a curi- 
-^ osity. It looks like a miniature totem-pole, 
and I wish I had before me its life history. I'd like 
to know just how all these seventeen scars were ac- 
quired. It seems to have come in contact with about 
all sorts and sizes of cutlery. If only teachers or par- 
ents had been wise enough to make a record of all 
my bloodletting mishaps, with occasions, causes, and 
effects, that record would afford a fruitful study for 
students of education. The pity of it is that we take 
no account of such matters as phases or factors of edu- 
cation. We keep saying that experience is the best 
teacher, and then ignore this eloquent forefinger. I 
call that criminal neglect arising from crass ignorance. 
Why, these scars that adorn many parts of my body 
are the foot-prints of evolution, if, indeed, evolution 
makes tracks. The scars on the faces of those students 
at Heidelberg are accounted badges of honor, but they 
cannot compare with the big scar on my left knee that 
came to me as the free gift of a corn-knife. Those 
students wanted their scars to take home to show their 
132 



FOREFINGERS 

mothers. I didn't want mine, and made every effort 
to conceal it, as well as the hole in my trousers. I got 
my scar as a warning. I profited by it, too, for never 
were there two cuts in exactly the same place. In fact, 
they were widely, if not wisely, distributed. They are 
the indices of the soaring sense of my youthful audacity. 
And yet neither parents nor teachers ever graded my 
scars. 

I recall quite distinctly that, at one time, I pro- 
claimed boldly over one entire page of a copy-book, 
that knowledge is power, and became so enthusiastic 
in these numerous proclamations that I wrote on the 
bias, and zigzagged over the page with fine abandon. 
But no teacher ever even hinted to me that the knowl- 
edge I acquired from my contest with a nest of bellig- 
erent bumblebees had the slightest connection wath 
power. When I groped my way home with both eyes 
swollen shut I was never lionized. Indeed, no ! Any- 
thing but that ! I couldn't milk the cows that evening, 
and couldn't study my lesson, and therefore, my newly 
acquired knowledge was called weakness instead of 
power. They did not seem to realize that my swollen 
face was prominent in the scheme of education, nor 
that bumblebees and j^ellow-jackets may be a means 
of grace. They wanted me to be solving problems in 
common (sometimes called vulgar) fractions. I don't 
fight bumblebees any more, which proves that my 
133 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

knowledge generated power. The emotions of my boy- 
hood presented a scene of grand disorder, and those 
bumblebees helped to organize them, and to clarify and 
define my sense of values. I can philosophize abput a 
bumblebee far more judicially now than I could when 
my eyes were swollen shut. 

I went to the town to attend a circus one day, and 
concluded I'd celebrate the day with <3clat by getting 
my hair cut. At the conclusion of this ceremony the 
tonsorial Beau Brummel, in the most seductive tones, 
suggested a shampoo. I just couldn't resist his bland- 
ishments, and so consented. Then he suggested tonic, 
and grew quite eloquent in recounting the benefits to 
the scalp, and I took tonic. I felt quite a fellow, till 
I came to pay the bill, and then discovered that I had 
but fifteen cents left from all my wealth. That, of 
course, was not sufficient for a ticket to the circus, so 
I bought a bag of peanuts and walked home, five miles, 
meditating, the while, upon the problem of life. My 
scalp was all right, but just under that scalp was a 
seething, soundless hubbub. I learned things that day 
that are not set down in the books, even if I did get 
myself laughed at. When I get to giving school credits 
for home work I shall certainly excuse the boy who 
has had such an experience as that from solving at 
least four problems in vulgar fractions, and I shall in- 
clude that experience in my definition of education, too. 
134 



FOREFINGERS 

I have tried to back-track Paul Laurence Dunbar, 
now and then, and have found it j^ood fun. Once I 
started with his expression, "the whole sky overhead 
and the whole earth underneath," and tried to get 
back to where that started. He must have been lying 
on his back on some grass-plot, right in the centre of 
everything, with that whole half-sphere of sky luring 
his spirit out toward the infinite, with a pillow that 
was eight thousand miles thick. If I had been his 
teacher I might have called him lazy and shiftless as 
he lay there, because he was not finding how to place 
a decimal point. I'm glad, on the whole, that I was 
not his teacher, for I'd have twinges of conscience 
every time I read one of his big thoughts. I'd feel that, 
while he was lying there growing big, I was doing my 
best to make him little. When I was lying on my back 
there in the Pantheon in Rome, looking up through 
that wide opening, and watching a moving-picture show 
that has no rival, the fleecy clouds in their ever-changing 
forms against that blue background of matchless Ital- 
ian sky, those gendarmes debated the question of ar- 
resting me for disorderly conduct. My conduct was 
disorderly because they couldn't understand it. But, 
if Raphael could have risen from his tomb only a few 
yards away, he would have told those fellows not to 
disturb me while I was being so liberally educated. 

Then, that other time, when my friend Reuben and 
135 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

I stood on the very prow of the ship when the sea was 
rolling high, swinging us up into the heights, and then 
down into the depths, with the roar drowning out all 
possibility of talk — well, somehow, I thought of that 
copy-book back yonder with its message that "Knowl- 
edge is power." And I never think of power without 
recalling that experience as I watched that battle royal 
between the power of the sea and the power of the ship 
that could withstand the angry buffeting of the waves, 
and laugh in glee as it rode them down. I know that 
six times nine are fifty-four, but I confess that I forgot 
this fact out there on the prow of that ship. Some 
folks might say that Reuben and I were wasting our 
time, but I can't think so. I like, even now, to stand 
out in the clear during a thunder-storm. I want the 
head uncovered, too, that the wind may toss my hair 
about while I look the lightning-flashes straight in 
the eye and stand erect and unafraid as the thunder 
crashes and rolls and reverberates about me. I like 
to watch the trees swaying to and fro, keeping time to 
the majestic rhythm of the elements. To me such an 
experience is what my neighbor John calls "growing 
weather," and at such a time the bigness of the affair 
causes me to forget for the time that there are such 
things as double datives. 

One time I spent the greater part of a forenoon 
watching logs go over a dam. It seems a simple thing 
136 



FOREFINGERS 

to tell, and hardly worth the telling, but it was a great 
morning in actual experience. In time those huge 
logs became things of life, and when they arose from 
their mighty plunge into the watery deeps they seemed 
to shake themselves free and laugh in their freedom. 
And there were battles, too. They struggled and 
fought and rode over one another, and their mighty 
collisions produced a very thunder of sound. I tried 
to read the book which I had with me, but could not. 
In the presence of such a scene one cannot read a 
book unless it is one of Victor Hugo's. That copy- 
book looms up again as I think of those logs, and I 
wonder whether knowledge is power, and whether ex- 
perience is the best teacher. But, dear me ! Here I've 
been frittering away all this good time, and these papers 
not graded yet ! 



137 



CHAPTER XXII 

STORY-TELLING 

ly /f"Y boys like to have me tell them stories, and, if 
•*- -'^ the stories are true ones, they like them all the 
better. So I sometimes become reminiscent when they 
gather about me and let them lead me along as if I 
couldn't help myself when they are so interested. In 
this way I become one of them. I like to whittle a 
nice pine stick while I talk, for then the talk seems m- 
cidental to the whittling and so takes hold of them ail 
the more. In the midst of the talking a boy will 
sometimes slip into my hand a fresh stick, when I have 
about exhausted the whittling resources of the other. 
That's about the finest encore I have ever received. 
A boy knows how to pay a compliment in a delicate 
way when the mood for compliments is on him, and 
if that mood of his is handled with equal delicacy 
great things may be accomplished. 

WeU, the other day as I whittled the inevitable 
pine stick I let them lure from me the story of Sant. 
Now, Sant was my seatmate in the village school back 
yonder, and I now know that I loved him whole- 
heartedly. I didn't know this at the time, for I took 
138 



STORY-TELLING 

him as a matter of course, just as I did my right hand. 
His name was Sanf ord, but boys don't call one another 
by their right names. They soon find affectionate 
nicknames. I have quite a collection of these nick- 
names myself, but have only a hazy notion of how or 
where they were acquired. When some one calls me 
by one of these names, I can readily locate him in time 
and place, for I well know that he must belong in a 
certain group or that name would not come to his 
lips. These nicknames that we all have are really 
historical. Well, we called him Sant, and that name 
conjures up before me one of the most wholesome 
boys I have ever known. He was brimful of fun. A 
heartier, more sincere laugh a boy never had, and my 
affection for him was as natural as my breathing. He 
knew I liked him, though I never told him so. Had I 
told him, the charm would have been broken. 

In those days spelUng was one of the high lights of 
school work, and we were incited to excellence in this 
branch of learning by head tickets, which were a 
promise of still greater honor, in the form of a prize, 
to the winner. The one who stood at the head of the 
class at the close of the lesson received a ticket, and the 
holder of the greatest number of these tickets at the 
end of the school year bore home in triumph the much- 
coveted prize in the shape of a book as a visible token 
of superiority. I wanted that prize, and worked for 
139 



REVERIES OE A SCHOOLMASTER 

it. Tickets wore accumulating in my little box with 
exhilarating i-ogularity, and I was nobly upholding the 
family name when I was stricken with pneumonia, 
and my victorious career had a rude check. My near- 
est competitor was Sam, who almost exulted in my 
illness because of the opportunity it afforded him for 
a rich harvest of head tickets. In the exuberance of 
his joy he made some remark to this effect, which Sant 
overheard. Up to this time Sant had taken no in- 
terest in the contests in spelling, but Sam's remark 
galvanized him into vigorous life, and spelling became 
his overmastering passion. Indeed, he became the 
wonder of the school, and in consequence poor Sam's 
anticipations were not realized. Day after day Sant 
caught the word that Sam missed, and thus added an- 
other ticket to his collection. So it went until I took 
my place again, and then Sant lapsed back into his 
indifference, leaving me to look after Sam myself. 
When I tried to face him down with circumstantial 
evidence he seemed pained to think that I could ever 
consider him capable of such designing. The merry 
twinkle in his eye was the only confession he ever made. 
Small wonder that T loved Sant. If I were writing a 
testimonial for myself I should say that it w;is much 
to my credit that I loved a boy like that. 

As a boy my risibilities were easily excited, and I'm 
glad that, even yet, I have not entu'ely overcome that 
140 



STORY TEIJJNC; 

weakness. If I couldn't luiv(5 a bi^ laugh, now and 
then, I'd feel that I ought to consult a physiciian. My 
boys and girls and I often laugh togc^tluM-, hut nev(u- 
at oiu^ another. Sant had a deal of fun with my pro- 
pensity to laugh. Wh(Mi vv(^ W(M-e coinn'ng our g(M)|L!;- 
raphy lesson, h(^ would make puns upon such ujimcs 
as ( 'hattahoochee ;uid Appalachi(^ol;i,, and I would 
promptly explode. TIhmi, v.nkw l\n) tea<;her. 15ut I 
drop l\\() injtnMc; of (;harity ovv.v ihr. ru^xl, sc(m»c, for his 
school-teaching was altog(^th(;r p(M'sonal, and not pcula- 
gogical. liii didn't know that puns and laughter weni 
the reactions on the part of us hoys that caused us to 
know tlu; fa(;ts of l\\c book. Hut \n) waidcnl us to 
learn those facts in his way, and not in our own. Poor 
fellow I Hequieacat in 'pace, if he can. 

Sant was the first one of our crowd to go to <'oIlege, 
and we wen; all proud of him, and pr('di(^ted great 
things for him. W(^ all knew Ik; was brilliiuil, and felt 
certain that the great ones in the college; would soon 
find it out. And they did; for ever and anon somci 
news would filter through to us that Sant was batten- 
ing upon Latin, (Irecik, mathematics, science;, and his- 
tory. Of course, we gave all the credit to our little 
school, and seemed to forget that the Lord may have; 
had something to do with it. When we prov(;d by 
Sant's achievements that our school was m; plus iiUra, 
I noticed that the irascible teacher joined h(;artily in 
141 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

the chorus. I intend to get all the glory I can from 
the achievements of my pupils, but I do hope that 
they may not be my sole dependence at the distribu- 
tion of glory. Yes, Sant graduated, and his name was 
written high upon the scroll. But he could not de- 
liver his oration, for he was sick, and a friend read it 
for him. And when he arose to receive his diploma 
he had to stand on crutches. They took him home in 
a carriage, and within a week he was dead. The fires 
of genius had burned brightly for a time and then went 
out in darkness, because his father and mother were 
first cousins. 

At the conclusion of this story, the boys were silent 
for a long time, and I knew the story was having its 
effect. Then there was a slight movement, and one 
of them put into my hand another pine stick. I 
whittled in silence for a time, and then told them of a 
woman I know who is well-known and highly esteemed 
in more than one State because of her distinctive 
achievements. One day I saw her going along the 
street leading by the hand a little four-year-old boy. 
He was the picture of health, and rollicked along as 
only such a healthy little chap can. He was eager to 
see all the things that were displayed in the windows, 
but to me he and the proud mother were the finest 
show on the street. She beamed upon him like an- 
other Madonna, and it seemed to me that the Master 
142 



STORY-TELLING 

must have been looking at some such glorious child as 
that when he said: "Suffer the little children to come 
unto me." 

A few weeks later I was riding on the train with that 
mother, and she was telling me that the little fellow 
had been ill, and told how anxious she had been 
through several days and nights because the physicians 
could not discover the cause of his illness. Then she 
told how happy she was that he had about recovered, 
and how bright he seemed when she kissed him good- 
by that morning. I saw her several times that week 
and at each meeting she gave me good news of the 
little boy at home. 

Inside of another month that noble little fellow was 
dead. Apparently he was his own healthy, happy 
little self, and then was stricken as he had been before. 
The pastor of the church of which the parents are 
members told me of the death scene. It occurred at 
about one o'clock in the morning, and the mother was 
worn and haggard from anxiety and days of watching. 
The members of the family, the physician, and the 
pastor were standing around the bed, but the mother 
was on her knees close beside the little one, who was 
writhing in the most awful convulsions. Then the 
stricken mother looked straight into heaven and made 
a personal appeal to God to come and relieve the little 
fellow's sufferings. Again and again she prayed: "Oh, 
143 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

God, do come and take my little boy." And the 
Angel of Death, in answer to that prayer, came in and 
touched the baby, and he was still. 

The mother of that child may or may not know that 
the grandfather of that child came into that room that 
night, though he had been long in his grave, and mur- 
dered her baby — murdered him with tainted blood. 
That grandfather had not lived a clean life, and so 
broke a mother's heart and forced her in agony to 
pray for the death of her own child. 

When I had finished I walked quietly away, leaving 
the boys to their own thoughts, and as I walked I 
breathed the wish that my boys may live such clean, 
wholesome, upright, temperate lives that no child or 
grandchild may ever have occasion to reproach them, 
or point the finger of scorn at them, and that no mother 
may ever pray for death to come to her baby because 
of a taint in their blood. 



144 



CHAPTER XXIII 

GRANDMOTHER 

Ti/TY grandmother was about the nicest grand- 
-*- -■- mother that a boy ever had, and in memory 
of her, I am quite partial to all the grandmothers. I 
like Whistler's portrait of his mother there in the 
Luxembourg— the serene face, the cap and strings, and 
the folded hands — because it takes me back to the 
days and to the presence of my grandmother. She 
got into my heart when I was a boy, and she is there 
yet; and there she will stay. The bread and butter 
that she somehow contrived to get to us boys between 
meals made us feel that she could read our minds. I 
attended a banquet the other night, but they had no 
such bread and butter as we boys had there in the 
shade of that apple-tree. It was real bread and real 
butter, and the appetite was real, too, and that helped 
to invest grandmother with a halo. Sometimes she 
would add jelly, and that caused our cup of joy to run 
over. She just could not bear a hungry look on the 
face of a boy, and when such a look appeared she ex- 
orcised it in the way that a boy likes. What I liked 
about her was that she never attached any conditions 
145 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

to her bread and butter — no, not even when she added 
jelly, but her gifts were as free as salvation. The 
more I think of the matter, the more I am convinced 
that her gifts were salvation, for I know, by experi- 
ence, that a hungry boy is never a good boy, at least, 
not to excess. 

Whatever the vicissitudes of life might be to me, I 
knew that I had a city of refuge beside grandmother's 
big armchair, and when trouble came I instinctively 
sought that haven, often with rare celerity. In that 
hallowed place there could be no hunger, nor thirst, 
nor persecution. In that place there was peace and 
plenty, whatever there might be elsewhere. I often 
used to wonder how she could know a boy so well. I 
would be aching to go over to play with Tom, and the 
first thing I knew grandmother was sending me over 
there on some errand, telling me there was no special 
hurry about coming back. My father might set his 
foot down upon some plan of mine ever so firmly, but 
grandmother had only to smile at him and he was re- 
duced to a degree of limpness that contributed to my 
escape. I have often wondered whether that smile on 
the face of grandmother did not remind him of some 
of his own boyish pranks. 

We boys knew, somehow, what she expected of us, 
and her expectation was the measuring rod with which 
we tested our conduct. Boy-like, we often wandered 
140 



GRANDMOTHER 

away into a far country, but when we returned, she 
had the fatted calf ready for us, with never a question 
as to our travels abroad. In that way foreign travel 
lost something of its glamour, and the home life made 
a stronger appeal. She made her own bill of fare so 
appetizing that we lost all our relish for husks and the 
table companions connected with them. She never 
asked how or where we acquired the cherry-stains on 
our shirts, but we knew that she recognized cherry- 
stains when she saw them. The next day our shirts 
were innocent of foreign cherry-stains, and we experi- 
enced a feeling of righteousness. She made us feel 
that we were equal partners with her in the enterprise 
of life, and that hoeing the garden and eating the 
cookies were our part of the compact. 

When we went to stay with her for a week or two 
we carried with us a book or so of the lurid sort, but 
returned home leaving them behind, generally in the 
form of ashes. She found the book, of course, beneath 
the pillow, and replaced it when she made the bed, 
but never mentioned the matter to us. Then, in the 
afternoon, while we munched cookies she would read 
to us from some book that made our own book seem 
tame and unprofitable. She never completed the 
story, however, but left the book on the table where 
we could find it easily. No need to tell that we fin- 
ished the story, without help, in the evening, and the 
147 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

next day cremated the other book, having found 
something more to our hking. One evening, as we 
sat together, she said she wished she knew the name 
of Jephthah's daughter, and then went on with her 
knitting as if she had forgotten her \vash. At that 
age we boys were not specially interested in daughters, 
no matter whose they were; but that challenge to our 
curiosity was too much for us, and before we went to 
bed we knew all that is known of that fine girl. 

That was the beginning of our intimate, personal 
knowledge of Bible characters — Ruth, Esther, David, 
and the rest; but grandmother made us feel that we 
had known about them all along. I know, even yet, 
just how tall Ruth was, and what was the color of her 
eyes and hair; and Esther is the standard by which 
I measure all the queens of earth, whether they wear 
crowns or not. 

One day when we went over to play with Tom we 
saw a peacock for the first time, and at supper became 
enthusiastic over the discovery. In the midst of our 
rhapsodizing grandmother asked us if we knew how 
those beautiful spots came to be in the feathers of the 
peacock. We confessed our ignorance, and like Ajax, 
prayed for light. But we soon became aware that our 
prayer would not be answered until after the supper 
dishes had been washed. Our alacrity in proffering our 
services is conclusive evidence that grandmother knew 
148 



GRANDMOTHER 

about motivation whether she knew the word or not. 
We suggested the omission of the skillets and pans for 
that night only, but the suggestion fell upon barren soil, 
and the regular order of business was strictly observed. 
Then came the story, and the narrator made the 
characters seem lifelike to us as they passed in re- 
view. There were Jupiter and Juno; there were 
Argus with his hundred eyes, the beautiful heifer that 
was lo, and the crafty Mercury. In rapt attention 
we listened until those eyes of Argus were transferred 
to the feathers of the peacock. If Mercury's story 
of his musical pipe closed the eyes of Argus, grand- 
mother's story opened ours wide, and we clamored for 
another, as boys will do. Nor did we ask in vain, and 
we were soon learning of the Flying Mercury, and how 
light and airy Mercury was, seeing that an infant's 
breath could support him. After telhng of the wild 
ride of Phaeton and his overthrow, she quoted from 
John G. Saxe: 

"Don't set it down in your table of forces 
That any one man equals any four horses. 
Don't swear by the Styx! 
It is one of old Nick's 
Diabolical tricks 

To get people into a regular ' fix,' 
And hold 'em there as fast as bricks!" 

Be it said to our credit that after such an evening 
dish-washing was no longer a task, but rather a de- 
149 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

lightful prelude to another mythological feast. We 
wandered with Ulysses and shuddered at Polyphemus; 
we went in quest of the Golden Fleece, and watched 
the sack of Troy; we came to know Orpheus and Eury- 
dice and Pyramus and Thisbe; and we sowed dragon's 
teeth and saw armed men spring up before us. Since 
those glorious evenings with grandmother the classic 
myths have been among my keenest delights. I read 
again and again Lowell's extravaganza upon the story 
of Daphne, and can hear grandmother's laugh over 
his deUcious puns. I can hear her voice as she reads 
Shelley's musical Arethusa, and then turns to his 
Skylark to compare their musical qualities. I feel 
downright sorry for the boy who has no such grand- 
mother to teach him these poems, but not more sorry 
than I do for those boys who took that Diamond Dick 
book with them when they went visiting. Even now, 
when people talk to me of omniscience I always think 
of grandmother. 



150 



CHAPTER XXIV 

MY WORLD 

"The world is too much with us; late and soon, 
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; 
Little we see in nature that is ours; 
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! 
This sea that bares her bosom to the moon. 
The winds that will be howUng at all hours 
And are up-gather'd now like sleeping flowers, 
For this, for everything, we are out of tune; 
It moves us not. Great God! I'd rather be 
A pagan suckled in a creed out-worn — 
So might I, standing on tliis pleasant lea. 
Have gUmpses that would make me less forlorn; 
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; 
And hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn." 

— Wordsworth. 

I HAVE heard many times that this is one of the 
best of Wordsworth's many sonnets, and in the 
matter of sonnets, I find myself compelled to depend 
upon others for my opinions. I'm sorry that such is 
the case, for I'd rather not deal in second-hand judg- 
ments if I could help it. About the most this sonnet 
can do for me is to make me wonder what my world 
is. I suppose that the size of my world is the measure 
of myself, and that in my schoolmastering I am sim- 
ply trying to enlarge the world of my pupils. I saw 
a gang-plough the other day that is drawn by a motor, 
151 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

and that set me to thinking of ploughs in general, and 
their evohition; and, by tracing the plough backward, 
I saw that the original one must have been the fore- 
finger of some cave-dweller. 

When his forefinger got sore, he got a forked stick 
and used that instead; then he got a larger one and 
used both hands; then a still larger one, and used oxen 
as the motive power; and then he fitted handles to 
it, and other parts till he finally produced a plough. 
But the principle has not been changed, and the gang- 
plough is but a multifold forefinger. It is great fun 
to loose the tether of the mind and let it go racing 
along, in and out, till it runs to earth the original plough. 
Whether the solution is the correct one makes but little 
difference. If friend Brown cannot disprove my the- 
ory, I am on safe ground, and have my fun whether 
he accepts or rejects my findings. 

This is one way of enlarging one's world, I take it, 
and if this sort of thing is a part of the process of edu- 
cation, I am in favor of it, and wish I knew how to 
set my boys and girls going on such excursions. I wish 
I might have gone to school to Agassiz just to get my 
eyes opened. If I had, I'd probably assign to my 
pupils such subjects as the evolution of a snowflake, 
the travels of a sunbeam, the mechanism of a bird's 
wing, the history of a dewdrop, the changes in a blade 
of grass, and the evolution of a grain of sand. If I 
152 



MY WORLD 

could only take them away from books for a month 
or so, they'd probably be able to read the books to 
better advantage when they came back. I'd like to 
take them on a walking trip over the Alps and through 
rural England and Scotland for a few weeks. 

If they could only gather broom, heather, shamrock, 
and edelweiss, thej^ would be able to see clover, alfalfa, 
arbutus, and mignonette when they came back home. 
If they could see black robins in Wales and Germany, 
the robin redbreast here at home would surely be 
thought worthy of notice. If they could see stalac- 
tites and stalagmites in Luray Cave, their world would 
then include these formations. One of my boys was 
a member of an exploring expedition in the Andes, 
and one night they were encamped near a glacier. 
This glacier protruded into a lake, and on that par- 
ticular night the end of that river of ice broke off and 
thus formed an iceberg. The glacier was nearly a 
mile wide, and when the end broke off the sound was 
such as to make the loudest thunder seem a whisper 
by comparison. It was a rare experience for this 
young fellow to be around where icebergs are made, 
and vicariously I shared his experience. 

I want to know the price of eggs, bacon, and coffee, 

but I need not go into camp on the price-list. Having 

purchased my bacon and eggs, I like to move along to 

where my friend is sitting, and hear him tell of his ex- 

153 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

periences with glaciers and icebergs, and so become 
inoculated with the world-enlarging virus. Or, if he 
comes in to share my bacon and eggs, these mundane 
delights lose none of their flavor by being garnished 
with conversation on Andean themes. I'm glad to 
have my friend push that greatest of monuments, "The 
Christ of the Andes," over into my world. I arise 
from the table feeling that I have had full value for 
the money I expended for eggs and bacon. 

I'd like to have in my world a liberal sprinkling of 
stars, for when I am looking at stars I get away from 
sordid things, for a time, and get my soul renovated. 
I think St. Paul must have been associating with starry 
space just before he wrote the last two verses of that 
eighth chapter of Romans. I can't see how he could 
have written such mighty thoughts if he had been 
dwelling upon clothes or symptoms. The reading of 
a patent-medicine circular is not specially conducive 
to thoughs of infinity. So I like, in my meditations, 
to take trips from star to star, and from planet to 
planet. I like to wonder whether these planets were 
rightly named — whether Venus is as beautiful as the 
name implies, and whether the Martians are really 
disciples of the warlike Mars. I like to drift along 
upon the canals on the planet Mars, with heroic 
Martians ph^ing the oars. I have great fun on such 
spatial excursions, and am glad that I ever annexed 
154 



MY WORLD 

these planets to my world. I can take these stellar 
companions with me to my potato-patch, and they 
help the day along. 

I want pictures in my world, too, and statues; for 
they show me the hearts of the artists, and that is a 
sort of baptism. Sometimes I grow a bit impatient 
to see how slowly some work of mine proceeds. Then 
I think of Ghiberti, who worked for forty-two years 
on the bronze doors of the Baptistry there in Florence, 
which Michael Angelo declared to be worthy of paradise. 
Then I reflect that it was worth a lifetime of work to 
win the praise of such as Angelo. This reflection 
calms me, and I plod on more serenely, glad of the fact 
that I can count Ghiberti and the bronze doors as a 
part of my world. When I can have Titian, Rem- 
brandt, Leonardo da Vinci, Andrea del Sarto, Raphael, 
and Rosa Bonheur around, I feel that I have good 
company and must be on my good behavior. If 
Corot, Reynolds, Leighton, Watts, and Landseer 
should be banished from my world I'd feel that I had 
suffered a great loss. I like to hobnob with such folks 
as these, both for my own pleasure and also for the 
reputation I gain through such associations. 

I must have people in my world, also, or it wouldn't 

be much of a world. And I must be careful in my 

selection of people, if I am to achieve any distinction 

as a world builder. I just can't leave CordeUa out, 

155 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

for she helps to make my world luminous. But she 
must have companions; so I shall select Antigone, 
EvangeHne, Miranda, Mary, and Martha if she can 
spare the time. Among the male contingent I shall 
want Job, Erasmus, Petrarch, Dante, Goethe, Shake- 
speare, Milton, and Burns. I want men and women 
in whose presence I must stand uncovered to preserve 
my self-respect. I want big people, wise people, and 
dynamic people in my world, people who will teach 
me how to work and how to live. 

If I can get my world made and peopled to my 
liking, I shall refute Mr. Wordsworth's statement that 
the world is too much with us. If I can have the right 
sort of folks about me, they will see to it that I do not 
waste my powers, for I shall be compelled to use my 
powers in order to avert expulsion from their good 
company. If I get my world built to suit me, I shall 
have no occasion to imitate the poet's plaint. I sus- 
pect there is no better fun in life than in building a 
world of one's own. 



156 



CHAPTER XXV 
THIS OR THAT 

ONE day in London a friend told me that on tiie 
market in that city they have eggs of five grades 
— ^new-laid eggs, fresh eggs, imported fresh eggs, good 
eggs, and eggs. A few days later we were in the Tate 
Gallery looking at the Turner collection when he told 
me a story of Turner. It seems that a friend of the 
artist was in his studio watching him at his work, 
when suddenly this friend said: "Really, Mr. Turner, 
I can't see in nature the colors that you portray on 
canvas." The artist looked at him steadily for a 
moment, and then replied: "Don't you wish you 
could?" Life, even at its best, certainly is a maze. 
I find myself in the labyrinth, all the while groping 
about, but quite unable to find the exit. Theseus 
was most fortunate in having an Ariadne to furnish 
him with the thread to guide him. But there seems 
to be no second Ariadne for me, and I must continue 
to grope with no thread to guide. There in the Tate 
Gallery I was standing enthralled before pictures by 
Watts and liCighton, and paying small heed to the 
Turners, when the story of my friend held a mirror 
157 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

before me, and as I looked I asked myself the ques- 
tion: "Don't you wish you could?" 

Those Barbizon chaps, artists that they were, used 
to laugh at Corot and tell him he was parodying nature, 
but he went right on painting the foliage of his trees 
silver-gray until, finally, the other artists discovered 
that he was the only one who was telling the truth on 
canvas. Every one of my dilemmas seems to have at 
least a dozen horns, and I stand helpless before them, 
fearful that I may lay hold of the wrong one. I was 
reading in a book the other day the statement of a 
man who says he'd rather have been Louis Agassiz 
than the richest man in America. In another Uttle 
book, ''The Kingdom of Light," the author, who is a 
lawyer, says that Concord, Massachusetts, has influ- 
enced America to a greater degree than New York 
and Chicago combined. I think I'll blot out the su- 
perlative degree in my grammar, for the comparative 
gives me all the trouble I can stand. 

Everything seems to be better or worse than some- 
thing else, and there doesn't seem to be any best or 
worst. So I'll dispense with the superlative degree. 
Whether I buy new-laid eggs, or just eggs, I can't be 
certain that -I have the best or the worst eggs that can 
be found. If I go over to Paris I may find other grades 
of eggs. Our Sunday-school teacher wanted a gener- 
ous contribution of money one day, and, by way of 
158 



THIS OR THAT 

causing purse-strings to relax, told of a boy who was 
putting aside choice bits of meat as he ate his dinner. 
Upon being asked by his father why he was doing so, 
he replied that he was saving the bits for Rover. He 
was reminded that Rover could do with scraps and 
bones, and that he himself should eat the bits he had 
put aside. When he went out to Rover with the plate 
of leavings, he patted him affectionately and said: 
"Poor doggie! I was going to bring you an offering 
to-day; but I guess you'll have to put up with a col- 
lection." 

I Uke Robert Burns and think his ''To Mary in 
Heaven" is his finest poem. But the critics seem to 
prefer his "Highland Mary." So I suppose these 
critics will look at me, with something akin to pity in 
the look, and say: "Don't you wish you could?" 
Years ago some one planted trees about my house for 
shade, and selected poplar. Now the roots of these 
trees invade the cellar and the cistern, and prove 
themselves altogether a nuisance. Of course, I can 
cut out the trees, but then I should have no shade. 
That man, whoever he was, might just as well have 
planted elms or maples, but, by some sort of perversity 
or ignorance, planted poplars, and here am I, years 
afterward, in a state of perturbation about the safety 
of cellar and cistern on account of those pesky roots. 
I do wish that man had taken a course in arboriculture 
159 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

before he planted those trees. It might have saved 
me a deal of bother, and been no worse for him. 

Back home, after we had passed tlirough the auto- 
graph-album stage of development, we became inter- 
ested in another sort of literary composition. It was 
a book in which we recorded the names of our favorite 
book, author, poem, statesman, flower, name, place, 
musical instrument, and so on throughout an entire 
page. That experience was really valuable and caused 
us to do some thinking. It would be well, I think, to 
use such a book as that in the examination of teachers 
and pupils. I wish I might come upon one of the books 
now in which I set down the record of my favorites. 
It would afford me some interesting if not valuable 
information. 

If I were called upon to name my favorite flower now 
I'd scarcely know what to say. In one mood I'd cer- 
tainly say lily-of-the-valley, but in another mood I 
might say the rose. I do wonder if, in those books 
back yonder, I ever said sunflower, dandelion, dahlia, 
fuchsia, or daisy. If I should find that I said helio- 
trope, I'd give my adolescence a pretty high grade. 
If I were using one of these books in my school, and 
some boy should name the sunflower as his favorite, 
I'd find myself facing a big problem to get him con- 
verted to the lily-of-the-vafley, and I really do not 
know quite how I should proceed. It might not help 
160 



THIS OR THAT 

him much for me to ask him: "Don't you wish you 
could?" If I should let him know that my favorite 
is the lily-of-the-valley, he might name that flower as 
the line of least resistance to my approval and a high 
grade, with the mental reservation that the sunflower 
is the most beautiful plant that grows. Such a course 
might gratify me, but it certainly would not make for 
his progress toward the lily-of-the-valley, nor yet for 
the salvation of his soul. 

I have a boy of my own, but have never had the 
courage to ask him what kind of father he thinks he 
has. He might tell me. Again I am facing a dilemma. 
Dilemmas are quite plentiful hereabouts. I must de- 
termine whether to regard him as an asset or a liability. 
But, that is not the worst of my troubles. I plainly 
see that sooner or later he is gomg to decide whether 
his father is an asset or a liability. We must go over 
our books some day so as to find out which of us is in 
debt to the other. I know that I owe him his chance, 
but parents often seem backward about paying their 
debts to their children, and I'm wondering whether I 
shall be able to cancel that debt, to his present and 
ultimate satisfaction. I'd be decidedly uncomfortable, 
years hence, to find him but *'the runt of something 
good" because I had failed to pay that debt. When I 
was a lad they used to say that I was stubborn, but 
that may have been my unsophisticated way of trying 
161 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

to collect a debt. I take some comfort, in these later 
days, in knowing that the folks at home credit me with 
the virtue of perseverance, and I wish they had used 
the milder word when I was a boy. 

There is a picture show just around the corner, and 
I'm in a quandary, right now, whether to follow the 
crowd to that show of sit here and read Ruskin's 
"Sesame and Lilies." If I go to see the picture film 
I'll probably see an exhibition of cowboy equestrian 
dexterity, with a "happy ever after" finale, and may 
also acquire the reputation among the neighbors of 
being up to date. But, if I spend the evening with 
Ruskin, I shall have something worth thinking over 
as I go about my work to-morrow. So here is another 
dilemma, and there is no one to decide the matter for 
me. This being a free moral agent is not the fun that 
some follis try to make it appear. I don't really see 
how I shall ever get on unless I subscribe to Sam 
Walter Foss's lines: 

''No other song has vital breath 
Through endless time to fight with death, 
Than that the singer sings apart 
To please his solitary heart." 



162 



CHAPTER XXVI 
RABBIT PEDAGOGY 

AS I think back over my past life as a schoolmaster 
-^^^ I keep wondering how many inebriates I have 
produced in my career. I'd be glad to think that I 
have not a single one to my discredit, but that seems 
beyond the wildest hope, considering the character of 
my teaching. I am a firm believer in temperance in 
all things; but, in the matter of pedagogy, my prac- 
tice cannot be made to square with my theory. In 
fact, I find, upon reflection, that I have been teaching 
intemperance all the while. I'm glad the oflScers of 
my church do not know of my pedagogical practice. 
If they did, they would certainly take action against 
me, and in that case I cannot see what adequate de- 
fense I could offer. Being a schoolmaster, I could 
scarcely bring myself to plead ignorance, for such a 
plea as that might abrogate my license. So I shall 
just keep quiet and look as nearly wise as possible. 
It is embarrassing to me to reflect how long it has 
taken me to see the error of my practice. If I had 
asked one of my boys he could have told me of the 
better way. 

When we got the new desks in our school, back home, 
163 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

our teacher seemed very anxious to have them kept 
in their virgin state, and became quite animated as he 
walked up and down the aisle fulminating against the 
possible offender. In the course of his sulphury re- 
marks he threatened condign punishment upon the 
base miscreant who should dare use his penknife on 
one of those desks. His address was equal to a course 
in "Paradise Lost," nor was it without its effect upon 
the audience. Every boy in the room felt in his 
pocket to make sure that it contained his knife, and 
every one began to wonder just where he would find 
the whetstone when he went home. We were all 
eager for school to close for the day that we might set 
about the important matter of whetting our knives. 
Henceforth wood-carving was a part of the regular 
order in our school, but it was done without special 
supervision. Of course, each boy could prove an alibi 
when his own desk was under investigation. It would 
not be seemly, in this connection, to give a verbatim 
report of the conversations of us boys when we assem- 
bled at our rendezvous after school. Suffice it to say 
that the teacher's ears must have burned. The con- 
sensus of opinion was that, if the teacher didn't want 
the desks carved, he should not have told us to carve 
them. We seemed to think that he had said, in sub- 
stance, that he knew we were a gang of young rascal- 
lions, and that, if he didn't intimidate us, we'd surely 
104 



RABBIT PEDAGOGY 

be guilty of some form of vandalism. Then he pro- 
ceeded to point out the way by suggesting penknives; 
and the trick was done. We were ever open to sug- 
gestions. 

We had another teacher whose pet aversion was 
match heads. Cicero and Demosthenes would have 
apologized to him could they have come in when he 
was delivering one of his eloquent orations upon this 
engaging theme. His vituperative vocabulary seemed 
unlimited, inexhaustible, and cumulative. He raved, 
and ranted, and exuded epithets with the most lavish 
prodigality. It seemed to us that he didn't care much 
what he said, if he could only say it rapidly and forci- 
bly. In the very midst of an eloquent period another 
match head would explode under his foot, and that 
seemed to answer the purpose of an encore. The class 
in arithmetic did not recite that afternoon. There was 
no time for arithmetic when match heads were to the 
fore. I sometimes feel a bit guilty that I was admitted 
to such a good show on a free pass. The next day, of 
course, the Gatling guns resumed their activity; the 
girls screeched as they walked toward the water-pail 
to get a drink; we boys studied our geography lesson 
with faces garbed in a look of innocence and wonder; 
our mothers at home were wondering what had become 
of all the matches; and the teacher — but the less said 
of him the better. 

165 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

We boys needed only the merest suggestion to set us 
in motion, and like Dame Rumor in the iEneid, we 
gathered strength by the going. One day the teacher 
became somewhat facetious and recounted a red-pepper 
episode in the school of his boyhood. That was enough 
for us; and the next day, in our school, was a day long 
to be remembered. I recall in the school reader the 
story of "Meddlesome Matty." Her name was really 
Matilda. One day her curiosity got the better of her, 
and she removed the lid from her grandmother's snuff- 
box. The story goes on to say: 

"Poor eyes, and nose, and mouth, and chin 
A dismal sight presented; 
And as the snuff got further in 
Sincerely she repented." 

Barring the element of repentance, the red pepper was 
equally provocative of results in our school. 

I certainly cannot lay claim to any great degree of 
docility, for, in spite of all the experiences of my boy- 
hood, I fell into the evil ways of my teachers when I 
began my schoolmastering, and suggested to my pupils 
numberless short cuts to wrong-doing. I railed against 
intoxicants, and thus made them curious. That's 
why I am led to wonder if I have incited any of my 
boys to strong drink as my teachei-s incited me to desk- 
carving, match heads, and red pepper. 

I have come to think that a rabbit excels me in the 



RABBIT PEDAGOGY 

matter of pedagogy. The tar-baby story that Joel 
Chandler Harris has given us abundantly proves my 
statement. The rabbit had so often outwitted the 
fox that, in desperation, the latter fixed up a tar-baby 
and set it up in the road for the benefit of the rabbit. 
In his efforts to discipline the tar-baby for impoliteness, 
the rabbit became enmeshed in the tar, to his great 
discomfort and chagrin. However, Brer Rabbit^s 
knowledge of pedagogy shines forth in the following 
dialogue: 

Wen Brer Fox fine Brer Rabbit mixt up wid de Tar- 
Baby he feel mighty good, en he roll on de groun' en laff . 
Bimeby he up'n say, sezee : 

"Well, I speck I got you dis time, Brer Rabbit," sezee. 
"Maybe I ain't, but I speck I is. You been runnin' 
roun' here sassin' atter me a mighty long time, but I speck 
you done come ter de een' er de row. You bin cuttin' up 
yo' capers en bouncin' 'roun' in dis neighborhood ontwel 
you come ter b'leeve yo'se'f de boss er de whole gang. 
En den youer allers some'rs whar you got no bizness," sez 
Brer Fox, sezee. "Who ax you fer ter come en strike up 
a'quaintance wid dish yer Tar-Baby? En who stuck you 
up dar whar you is ? Nobody in de roun' worril. You 
des tuck en jam yo'se'f on dat Tar-Baby widout watin' 
fer enny invite," sez Brer Fox, sezee, "en dar you is, en 
dar you'll stay twel I fixes up a bresh-pile and fires her up, 
kazc I'm gwinetcr bobby-cue you dis day, sho," sez Brer 
Fox, sezee. 

Den Brer Rabbit talk mighty 'umble. 

"I don't kecr w'at you do wid me, Brer Fox," sezee, 
"so you don't fling me in dat brier-patch. Roas' me, Brer 
167 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

Fox," sezee, "but don't fling me in dat brier-patch," sezee. 

"Hit's so much trouble far ter kindle a fier," sez Brer 
Fox, sezee, "dat I speck I'll hatter hang you," sezee. 

"Hang me des ez high as you please, Brer Fox," sez 
Brer Rabbit, sezee, "but do fer de Lord's sake don't fling 
me in dat brier-patch," sezee. 

"I ain't got no string," sez Brer Fox, sezee, "en now I 
speck I'll hatter drown you," sezee. 

"Drown me des ez deep ez you please, Brer Fox," sez 
Brer Rabbit, sezee, "but do don't fling me in dat brier- 
patch," sezee. 

"Dey ain't no water nigh," sez Brer Fox, sezee, "en 
now I speck I'll hatter skin you," sezee. 

"Skin me, Brer Fox," sez Brer Rabbit, sezee, "snatch 
out my eyeballs, far out my years by de roots, en cut off 
my legs," sezee, "but do please, Brer Fox, don't fling me 
in dat brier-patch,'* sezee. 

Co'se Brer Fox wanter hurt Brer Rabbit bad ez he 
kin, so he cotch 'im by de behime legs en slung 'im right 
in de middle er de brier-patch. Dar wuz a considerbul 
flutter whar Brer Rabbit struck de bushes, en Brer Fox 
sorter hang 'roun' fer ter see w'at wuz gwineter happen. 
Bimeby he hear somebody call 'im, en way up de hill he 
see Brer Rabbit settin' cross-legged on a chinkapin log 
koamin' de pitch outen his har wid a chip. Den Brer 
Fox know dat he bin swop off mighty bad. Brer Rabbit 
was bleedzed fer ter fling back some er his sass, en he 
holler out: 

"Bred en bawn in a brier-patch. Brer Fox — ^bred en 
bawn in a brier-patch!" en wid dat he skip out des ez 
lively ez a cricket in de embers. 



168 



CHAPTER XXVII 

PERSPECTIVE 

T WISH I could ever get the question of majors and 
■■• minors settled to my complete satisfaction. I 
thought my college course would settle the matter for 
all time, but it didn't. I suspect that those erudite 
professors thought they were getting me fitted out with 
enduring habits of majors and minors, but they seem 
to have made no allowance for changes of styles nor 
for growth. When I received my diploma they seemed 
to think I was finished, and would stay just as they 
had fixed me. They used to talk no little about fin- 
ished products, and, on commencement day, appeared 
to look upon me as one of them. On the whole, I'm 
glad that I didn't fulfil their apparent expectations. I 
have never been able to make out whether their atten- 
tions, on commencement day, were manifestations of 
pride or reHef . I can see now that I must have been 
a sore trial to them. In my callow days, when they 
occupied pedestals, I bent the knee to them by way of 
propitiating them, but I got bravely over that. At 
first, what they taught and what they represented were 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

my majors, but when I came to shift and reconstruct 
values, some of them climbed down off their pedestals, 
and my knee lost some of its flexibility. 

We had one little professor who afforded us no end 
of amusement by his taking himself so seriously. The 
boys used to say that he wrote letters and sent flowers to 
himself. He would strut about the campus as proudly 
as a pouter-pigeon, never realizing, apparently, that 
we were laughing at him. At first, he impressed us 
greatly with his grand air and his clothes, but after we 
discovered that, in his case at least, clothes do not 
make the man, we refused to be impressed. He could 
split liau's with infinite precision, and smoke a cigarette 
in the most approved style, but I never heard any of 
the boys express a wish to become that sort of man. 
Had there occurred a meeting, on the campus, between 
him and Zeus he would have been offended, I am sure, 
if Zeus had failed to set off a few thunderbolts in his 
honor. We used to have at home a bantam rooster 
that could create no end of flutter in the chicken yard, 
and could crow mightily; but when I reflected that he 
could neither laj^ eggs nor occupy much space in a 
frying-pan, I demoted him, in my thinking, from major 
rank to a low minor, and awarded the palm to one of 
the less bumptious but more useful fowls. Our little 
professor had degrees, of course, and has them yet, I 
suspect; but no one ever discovered that he put them 
170 



PERSPECTIVE 

to any good use. For that reason we boys lost interest 
in the man as well as his garnishments. 

Our professor of chemistry was different. He was 
never on dress-parade; he did not pose; he was no 
snob. We loved him because he was so genuine. He 
had degrees, too, but they were so obscured by the 
man that we forgot them in our contemplation of him. 
We knew that they do not make degrees big enough 
for him. I often wonder what degrees the colleges 
would want to confer upon William Shakespeare if he 
could come back. Then, too, I often think what a 
wonderful letter Abraham Lincoln could and might 
have written to Mrs. Bixby, if he had only had a degree. 
Agassiz may have had degrees, but he didn't really 
need them. Like Browning, he was big enough, even 
lacking degrees, to be known without the identification 
of his other names. If people need degrees they ought 
to have them, especially if they can live up to them. 
Possibly the time may come when degrees will be 
given for things done, rather than for things hoped 
for; given for at least one stage of the journey accom- 
plished rather than for merely packing a travelling- 
bag. If this time ever comes Thomas A. Edison will 
bankrupt the alphabet. 

In tliis coil of degrees and the absence of them, I 
become more and more confused as to majors and 
minors. There in college were those two professors 
171 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

both wearing degrees of the same size. Judged by 
that criterion they should have been of equal size and 
influence. But they weren't. In the one case you 
couldn't see the man for the degree; in the other you 
CDuldn't 800 the degree for the man. Small wonder 
that I find myself in such a hopeless muddle. I once 
thought, in my innocence, that there was a sort of 
metric scale in degrees — that an A.IVI. was ten times 
the size of an A.B.; that a Ph.D. was equal to ten 
A.M.'s; and that the LL.D. degree could be had only 
on the top of Mt. Olympus. But here I am, stumbling 
about among folks, and can't tell a Ph.D. from an A.B. 
I do wish all these degree chaps would weiir tags so 
that we waj^aring folks could toll them apart. It 
would simplify matters if the railway people would 
arrange compartments on their trains for these various 
degrees. The Ph.D. crowd would certainly fool more 
comfortable if they could herd together, so that they 
need not demean themselves by associating with mere 
A.JM.'s or the more lowly A.B.'s. We might hope, 
too, that bj"- way of di^•ersion they would put their 
heads together and compound some prescription by 
the use of which the world might avert war, reduce 
the high cost of living, banish a woman's tears, or save 
a soul from perdition. 

Be it said to my shame, that I do not know what 
even an A.B. means, much less the other degree hior- 
172 



PERSPECTIVE 

oglyphics. Sometimes I receive a letter having the 
writer's name printed at the top with an A.B. annex; 
but I do not know what the writer is trying to say to 
me by means of the printing. He probably wants me 
to know that he is a graduate of some sort, but he 
fails to make it clear to me whether his degree was con- 
ferred by a high school, a normal school, a college, or 
a university. I know of one high school that confers 
this degree, as well as many normal schools and col- 
leges. There are still other institutions where this 
same degree may be had, that freely admit that they 
are colleges, whether they can prove it or not. I'll be 
glad to send a stamped envelope for reply, if some one 
will only be good enough to tell me what A.B. does 
really mean. 

I do hope that the earth may never be scourged with 
celibacy, but the ever-increasing variety of bachelors, 
male and female, creates in me a feeling of apprehen- 
sion. Nor can I make out whether a bachelor of arts 
is bigger and better than bachelors of science and 
pedagogy. The arts folks claim that they are, and pro- 
ceed to prove it by one another. I often wonder what 
a bachelor of arts can do that the other bachelors can- 
not do, or vice versa. They should all be required to 
submit a list of their accomplishments, so that, when 
any of the rest of us want a bit of work done, we may 
be able to select wisely from among these differentiated 
173 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

bachelors. If we want a bridge built, a beefsteak 
broiled, a mountain tunnelled, a loaf of bread baked, 
a railroad constructed, a hat trimmed, or a book 
written, we ought to know which class of bachelors 
will serve our purpose best. Some one asked me just 
a few days ago to cite him to some man or woman 
who can write a prize-winning short story, but I 
couldn't decide whether to refer him to the bachelors 
of arts or the bachelors of pedagogy. I might have 
turned to the Litt.D.'s, but I didn't suppose they would 
care to bother with a little thing like that. 

In college I studied Greek and, in fact, won a gold 
medal for my agihty in ramping through Mr. Xeno- 
phon's parasangs. That medal is lost, so far as I know, 
and no one now has the remotest suspicion that I ever 
even halted along through those parasangs, not to 
mention ramping, or that I ever made the acquain- 
tance of ox-eyed Juno. But I need no medal to remind 
me of those experiences in the Greek class. Every 
bluebird I see does that for me. The good old doctor, 
one morning in early spring, rhapsodized for five 
mhiutes on the singing of a bluebird he had heard on 
his way to class, telling how the little fellow was pour- 
ing forth a melody that made the world and all Ufe 
seem more beautiful and blessed. We loved him for 
that, because it proved that he was a big-souled human 
being; and pupils like to discover human qualities in 
174 



PERSPECTIVE 

their teachers. The Httle professor may have heard 
the bluebird's singing, too; but if he did, he probably 
thought it was serenading him. If colleges of educa- 
tion and normal schools would select teachers who can 
dehght in the song of a bluebird their academic attain- 
ments would be ennobled and glorified, and their stu- 
dents might come to love instead of fearing them. Only 
a man or a woman with a big soul can sociaUze and 
vitalize the work of the schools. The mere academi- 
cian can never do it. 

The more I think of all these degree decorations in 
my efforts to determine what is major in hfe and what 
is minor, the more I thmk of George. He was an 
earnest schoolmaster, and was happiest when his boys 
and girls were around him, busy at their tasks. One 
year there were fourteen boys in his school, fifteen in- 
cluding himself, for he was one of them. The school 
day was not long enough, so they met in groups in 
the evening, at the various homes, and continued the 
work of the day. These boys absorbed his time, his 
strength, and his heart. Their success in their work 
was his greatest joy. Of those fourteen boys one is 
no more. Of the other thirteen one is a state official of 
high rank, five are attorneys, two are ministers of the 
Gospel, two are bankers, one is a successful business 
man, and two are engineers of prominence. George 
is the ideal of those men. They all say he gave them 
175 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

their start in the right direction, and always speak his 
name with reverence. George has these thirteen stars 
in his crown that I know of. He had no degrees, but I 
am thinking that some time he will hear the plaudit: 
''Well done, good and faithful servant." 



176 



CHAPTER XXVIII 
PURELY PEDAGOGICAL 

IT was a dark, cold, rainy night in November. The 
wind whistled about the house, the rain beat a tat- 
too against the window-panes and flooded the sills. 
The big base-burner, filled with anthracite coal, was 
illuminating the room through its mica windows, on 
all sides, and dispensing a warmth that smiled at the 
storm and cold outside. There was a book in the pic- 
ture, also; and a pair of slippers; and a smoking- 
jacket; and an armchair. From the ceiling was sus- 
pended a great lamp that joined gloriously in the 
chorus of light and cheer. The man who sat in the 
armchair, reading the book, was a schoolmaster — a 
college professor to be exact. Soft music floated up 
from below stairs as a soothing accompanhnent to his 
reading. Subconsciously, as he turned the pages, he 
felt a pity for the poor fellows on top of freight-trains 
who must endure the pitiless buffeting of the storm. 
He could see them bracing themselves against the 
blasts that tried to wrest them from their moorings. 
He felt a pity for the belated traveller who tries, well- 
nigh in vain, to urge his horses against the driving rain 
177 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

onward toward food and shelter. But the leaves of 
the book continued to turn at intervals; for the story- 
was an engaging one, and the schoolmaster was ever 
responsive to well-told stories. 

It was nine o'clock or after, and the fury of the 
storm was increasing. As if responding to the chal- 
lenge outside, he opened the draft of the stove and 
then settled back, thinking he would be able to com- 
plete the story before retiring. In the midst of one 
of the many compelling passages he heard a bell toll, 
or imagined he did. Brought to check by this star- 
tling sensation, he looked back over the page to dis- 
cover a possible explanation. Finding none, he smiled 
at his own fancy, and then proceeded with his reading. 
But, again, the bell tolled, and he wondered whether 
anything he had eaten at dinner could be held re- 
sponsible for the hallucination. Scarcely had he re- 
sumed his reading when the bell again tolled. He 
could stand it no longer, and must come upon the 
solution of the mystery. Bells do not toll at nine 
o'clock, and the weirdness of the affair disconcerted 
him. The nearer he drew to the foot of the stair, in 
his quest for information, the more foolish he felt his 
question would seem to the members of the family. 
But the question had scarce been asked when the boy 
of the house burst forth: "Yes, been tolling for half 
an hour." Meekly he asked: "Why are they tolUng 
178 



PURELY PEDAGOGICAL 

the bell?" "ChUd lost." "Whose child?" "Little 
girl belonging to the Norwegians who live in the shack 
down there by the woods." 

So, that was it! Well, it was some satisfaction to 
have the matter cleared up, and now he could go back 
to his book. He had noticed the shack in question, 
which was made of slabs set upright, with a precari- 
ous roof of tarred paper; and had heard, vaguely, 
that a gang of Norwegians were there to make a 
road through the woods to Minnehaha Falls. Beyond 
these bare facts he had never thought to inquire. 
These people and their doings were outside of his 
world. Besides, the book and the cheery room were 
awaiting his return. But the reading did not get on 
well. The tolling bell broke in upon it and brought 
before his mind the picture of a little girl wandering 
about in the storm and crying for her mother. He 
tried to argue with himself that these Norwegians 
did not belong in his class, and that they ought to 
look after their own children. He was under no ob- 
ligations to them — in fact, did not even know them. 
They had no right, therefore, to break in upon the 
serenity of his evening. 

But the bell tolled on. If he could have wrenched 

the clapper from out that bell, the page of his book 

might not have blurred before his eyes. As the wind 

moaned about the house he thought he heard a child 

179 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

crying, and started to his feet. It was inconceivable, 
he argued, that he, a grown man, should permit such 
incidental matters in life to so disturb his composure. 
There were scores, perhaps hundreds, of children lost 
somewhere in the world, for whom regiments of peo- 
ple were searching, and bells were tolling, too. So 
why not be philosophical and read the book ? But the 
words would not keep their places, and the page yielded 
forth no coherent thought. He could endure the ten- 
sion no longer. He became a whirlwind — slamming 
the book upon the table, kicking off the slippers, throw- 
ing the smoking-jacket at random, and rushing to the 
closet for his gear. At ten o'clock he was ready — 
hip-boots, slouch-hat, rubber coat, and lantern, and 
went forth into the storm. 

Arriving at the scene, he took his place in the search- 
ing party of about twenty men. They were to search 
the woods, first of all, each man to be responsible for 
a space about two or three rods wide and extending 
to the road a half-n\ile distant. Lantern in hand, he 
scrutinized each stone and stump, hoping and fearing 
that it might prove to be the little one. In the dark- 
ness he stumbled over logs and vines, became entangled 
in briers and brambles, and often was deluged with 
water from trees as he came in contact with over- 
hanging boughs. But his blood was up, for he was 
seeking a lost baby. When he fell full-length in tlie 
ISO 



PURELY PEDAGOGICAL 

swale, he got to his feet the best he could and went on. 
Book and room were forgotten in the glow of a larger 
purpose. So for two hours he splashed and struggled, 
but had never a thought of abandoning the quest until 
the child should be found. 

At twelve o'clock they had reached the road and 
were about to begin the search in another section of 
the wood when the church-bell rang. This was the 
signal that they should return to the starting-point 
to hear any tidings that might have come in the mean- 
time. Scarcely had they heard that a message had 
come from poUce headquarters in the city, and that 
information could be had there concerning a lost child 
when the schoolmaster called out: "Come on, Craig!" 
And away went these two toward the barn to arouse 
old ''Blackie" out of her slumber and hitch her to a 
buggy. Little did that old nag ever dream, even in 
her palmiest days, that she could show such speed as 
she developed in that four-mile drive. The school- 
master was too much wrought up to sit supinely by 
and see another do the driving; so he did it himself. 
And he drove as to the manner born. 

The information they obtained at the police station 
was meagre enough, but it furnished them a clew. A 
little girl had been found wandering about, and could 
be located on a certain street at such a number. The 
name of the family was not known. With this slen- 
181 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

der clew they began their search for the street and 
house. The map of streets which they had hastily 
sketched seemed hopelessly inadequate to guide them 
in and out of by-streets and around zigzag corners. 
They had adventures a plenty in pounding upon doors 
of wrong houses and thus arousing the fury of sleepy 
men and sleepless dogs. One of the latter tore away 
a quarter-section of the schoolmaster's rubber coat, 
and became so interested in this that the owner es- 
caped with no further damage. After an hour filled 
with such experiences they finally came to the right 
house. Joy flooded their hearts as the man inside 
called out: "Yes, wait a minute." Once inside, ques- 
tions and answers flew back and forth like a shuttle. 
Yes, a little girl — about five years old — light hair — 
braided and hanging down her back — check apron. 
*' She's the one — and we want to take her home." 
Then the lady appeared, and said it was too bad to 
take the little one out into such a night. But the 
schoolmaster bore her argument down with the word- 
picture of the little one's mother pacing back and forth 
in front of the shack, her hair hanging in strings, h^r 
clothing drenched with rain and clinging to her body, 
her eyes upturned, and her face expressing the most 
poignant agony. When they left she had thus been 
pacing to and fro for seven hours and was, no doubt, 
doing so yet. The mother-heart of the woman could 
182 



PURELY PEDAGOGICAL 

not withstand such an appeal, and soon she was busy 
in the difficult task of trying to get the little arras 
into the sleeves of dress and apron. Meanwhile, the 
two bedraggled men were on their knees striving with 
that acme of awkwardness of which only men are 
capable, to ensconce the little feet in stockings and 
shoes. The dressing of that child was worthy the 
brush of Raphael or the smile of angels. At three 
o'clock in the morning the schoohnaster stepped from 
the buggy and placed the sleeping baby in the moth- 
er's arms, and only the heavenly Father knows the 
language she spoke as she crooned over her httle one. 
As the schoolmaster wended his way homeward, cold, 
hungry, and worn he was buoyant in spirit to the 
point of ecstasy. But he was chastened, for he had 
stood upon the Mount of Transfiguration and knew 
as never before that the mission of the schoolmaster 
is to find and restore the lost child. 



183 



CHAPTER XXIX 

LONGEVITY 

T'M quite in the notion of playing a practical joke 
-■■ on Atropos, and, perhaps, on Methuselah, while 
I'm about it. I'm not partial to Atropos at the best. 
She's such a reckless, uppish, heedless sort of tyrant. 
She rushes into huts, palaces, and even into the grand 
stand, and lays about her with her scissors, snipping 
off threads with the utmost abandon. She wields her 
shears without any sort of apology or by your leave. 
Not even a check-book can stay her ravages. Her 
devastation knows neither ruth nor gentleness. I 
don't like her, and have no compunction about play- 
ing a joke at her expense. I don't imagine it will 
daunt her, in the least, but I can have my fun, at any 
rate. 

It is now just seven o'clock in the evening, and I 
shall not retire before ten o'clock at the earliest. So 
here are three good hours for me to dispose of; and 
I am the sole arbiter in the matter of disposing of 
them. My neighbor John has a cow, and he is apply- 
ing the efficiency test to her. He charges her with 
every pound of corn, bran, fodder, and hay that she 
184 



LONGEVITY 

eats, and doctor's bills, too, I suppose, if there are any. 
Then he credits her with all the milk she furnishes. 
There is quite a book-account in her name, and John 
has a good time figuring out whether, judged by net 
results, she is a consumer or a producer. If I can 
resurrect sufficient mathematical lore, I think I shall 
try to apply this efficiency test to my three hours just 
to see if I can prove that hours are as important as 
cows. I ought to be able, somehow, to determine 
whether these hours are consumers or producers. 

I read a book the other evening whose title is "Sto- 
ries of Thrift for Young Americans," and it made me 
feel that I ought to apply the efficiency test to myself, 
and repeat the process every waking hour of the day. 
But, in order to do this, I must apply the test to these 
three hours. In my dreamy moods, I like to personify 
an Hour and spell it with a capital. I like to think of 
an hour as the singular of Houri which the Moham- 
medans call nymphs of paradise, because they were, 
or are, beautiful-eyed. My Hour then becomes a god- 
dess walking through my life, and, as the poet says, 
et vera incessu patuit dea. If I show her that I appre- 
ciate her she comes again just after the clock strikes, 
in form even more winsome than before, and smiles 
upon me as only a goddess can. Once, in a sullen 
mood, I looked upon her as if she were a hag. When 
she returned she was a hag; and not till after I had 
185 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

done full penance did she become my beautiful god- 
dess again. 

A young man who had been spending the evening 
in the home of a neighbor complained that they did 
not play any games, and did nothing but talk. I could 
not ask what games he meant, fearing that I might 
smile in his face if he should say crokinole, tiddledy- 
winks, or button-button. Later on I leai-ned that 
much of the talking was done that evening by a very 
cultivated man who has travelled widely and intelli- 
gently, and has a most engaging manner in his fluent 
discussions of art, literature, archaeology, architecture, 
places, and peoples. I was sorry to miss such an 
evening, and think I could forego tiddledywinks with 
a fair degree of amiability if, instead, I could hear 
such a man talk. I have seen people yawn in an art 
gallery. I fear to play tiddledywinks lest my hour 
may resume the guise of a hag. But that makes me 
think of Atropos again, and the joke I am planning to 
play on her. Still, I see that I shall not soon get 
around to that joke if I persist in these dim generali- 
ties, as a schoolmaster is so apt to do. 

Well, as I was saying, these three hours are at my 
disposal, and I must decide what to do with them 
here and now. In deciding concerning hours I nuist 
sit in the judgment-seat whether I like it or not. To- 
morrow evening I shall have other three hours to dis- 
1S6 



LONGEVITY 

pose of the same as these, and the next evening three 
others, and my decision to-night may be far-reaching. 
In six days I shall have eighteen such hours, and in 
fifty weeks nine hundred. I suppose that a generous 
estimate of a college year would be ten hours a day 
for one hundred and eighty days, or eighteen hundred 
hours in all. I am quite aware that some college 
boys will feel inclined to apply a liberal discount to 
this estimate, but I am not considering those fellows 
who try to do a month's work in the week of examina- 
tion, and spend their fathers' money for coaching. 
Now, if eighteen hundred hours constitute a college 
year then my nine hundred hours are one-half a col- 
lege year, and it makes a deal of difference what I do 
with these three hours. 

If I had only started this joke on Atropos earUer 
and had applied these nine hundred hours on my 
college work, I could have graduated in three years 
instead of four, and that surely would have been in 
the line of efficiency. But in those days I was de- 
voting more time and attention to Clotho than to 
Atropos. I would fain have ignored Lachesis alto- 
gether, but she made me painfully conscious of her 
presence, especially during the finals when, it seemed 
to me, she was unnecessarily diligent in her vocation. 
I could have dispensed with much of her torsion with 
great equanimity. I suppose that now I am trying 
187 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

to square accounts with her by playmg this joke on 
her sister. 

So I have decided that I shall read a play of Shake- 
speare to-night, another one to-morrow evening, and 
continue this until I have read all that he wrote. In 
the fifty weeks of the year I can easily do this and then 
reread some of them many times. I ought to be able 
to commit to memory several of the plays, too, and 
that would be good fun. If those chaps back yonder 
could recite the Koran word for word I shall cer- 
tainly be able to learn equally well some of these 
plays. It would be worth while to recite "King Lear," 
''Macbeth," "Othello," "Hamlet," "The Tempest," 
and "As You Like It," the last week of the year just 
before I take my vacation of two weeks. If I can 
recite even these six plays in those six evenings I shall 
feel that I did well in deciding for Shakespeare in- 
stead of tiddled^'winks. 

Next year I shall read history, and that will be 
rare fun, too. In the nine hundred hours I shall cer- 
tainly be able to read all of Fiske, Mommsen, Rhodes, 
Bancroft, McMaster, Channing, Brjxe, Hart, Mottey, 
Gibbon, and von Hoist not to mention American 
statesmen. About the Ides of December I shall hold 
a levee and sit in state as the characters of history 
file by. I shall be able to call them all by name, to 
tell of the things they did and why they did them, 
and to connect their deeds with the world as it now is. 
188 



LONGEVITY 

I can't conceive of any picture-show equal to that, 
and all through my year with Shakespeare I shall 
be looking forward eagerly to my year with the his- 
torians. I plainly see that the neighbors will not 
need to bring in any playthings to amuse and enter- 
tain me, though, of course,'! shall be grateful to them 
for their kindly interest. Then, the next year I shall 
devote to music, and if, by practising for nine hun- 
dred hours, I cannot acquire a good degree of facility 
in manipulating a piano or a violin, I must be too 
dull to ever aspire to the favor of Terpsichore. If 
I but measure up to my hopes during this year I shall 
be saved the expense of buying my music ready- 
made. The next year I shall devote to art, and by 
spending one entire evening with a single artist I 
shall thus become acquainted with three hundred 
of them. If I become intimate with this number I 
shall not be lonesome, even if I do not know the others. 
I think I shall give an art party at the holiday time 
of that year, and have three hundred people im- 
personate these artists. This will afford me a good 
review of my studies in art. It may diminish the gate 
receipts of the picture-show for a few evenings, but I 
suspect the world will be able to wag along. 

Then the next year I shall study poetry, the next 

astronomy, and the next botany. Thus I shall come 

to know the plants of earth, the stars of heaven, 

and the emotions of men. That ought to ward off 

189 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

ennui and afford entertainment without the aid of 
the saloon. In the succeeding twelve years I shall 
want to acquire as many languages, for I am eager 
to excel Elihu Burritt in linguistic, attainments even 
if I must yield to him as a disciple of Vulcan. If I 
can learn a language and read the literature of that 
language each year, possibly some college may be 
willing to grant me a degree for work in absentia. 
If not, I shall poke along the best I can and try to 
drown my grief in more copious drafts of work. 

And I shall have quite enough to do, for mathe- 
matics, the sciences, and the arts and crafts all lie 
ahead of me in my programme. I plainly see that I 
have played my last game of tiddledywuiks and 
solitaire. But I'll have fun anyhow. If I gain a 
half-year in each twelve-month as I have my pro- 
gramme mapped out, in seventy years I shall have a 
net gam of thirty-five years. Then, when Atropos 
comes along with her scissors to snip the thread, 
thinking I have reached my threescore and ten, I 
shall laugh in her face and let her know, between 
laughs, that I am reaUy one hundred and five, and 
have played a thirty-five-year joke on her. Then I 
shall quote Bacon at her to clinch the joke: "A man 
may be young in years but old in hours if he have 
lost no time." 



190 



CHAPTER XXX 
FOUR-LEAF CLOVER 

I HAVE no ambition to become cither a cynic, a 
pessimist, or an iconoclast. To aspire in either of 
these directions is bad for the digestion, and good 
digestion is the foundation and source of much that 
is desirable in human affairs. Introspection has its 
uses, to be sure, but the stomach should have exemp- 
tion as an objective. A stomach is a valuable asset if 
only one is not conscious of it. One of the emoluments 
of schoolmastering is the opportunity it affords for 
communing with elect souls whose very presence is 
a tonic. Will is one of these. He has a way of shunt- 
ing my introspection over to the track of the head or 
the heart. He just talks along and the first thing I 
know the heart is singing its way through and above 
the storm, while the head has been connected up to 
the heart, and they are doing team-work that is good 
for me and good for all who meet me. At church I 
like to have them sing the hymn whose closing coup- 
let is: 

" I'll drop my burden at his feet 
And bear a song away." 

I come out strong in singing that couplet, for I like 

it. In a human sense, that is just what happens when 

191 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

I chat with Will for an hour. When I ask him for 
bread, he never gives me a stone. On the contrary, 
he gives me good, white bread, and a bit of cake, be- 



In one of our chats the other day he was dilating 
upon Henry van Dyke's four rules, and very soon 
had banished all my little clouds and made my mental 
sky clear and bright. When I get around to evolving 
a definition of education I think I shall say that it is 
the process of furnishing people ^vith resources for 
profitable and pleasant conversation. Why, those 
four rules just oozed into the talk, without any sort 
of flutter or formality, and made our chat both agree- 
able and fruitful. Henry Ward Beecher said many 
good things. Here is one that I caught in the school 
reader in my boyhood: "The man who carries a lan- 
tern on a dark night can have friends all about him, 
walking safely by the help of its rays and he be not 
defrauded." Education is just such a lantern and 
this schoolmaster. Will, knows how to carry it that 
it may afford light to the friends about him. 

Well, the first of van Dyke's rules is: "You shall 
learn to desire notliing in the world so much but that 
you can be happy without it." I do wonder if he had 
been reading in Proverbs: "Better is a dinner of herbs 
where love is than a stalled ox and hatred therewith." 
Or he may have been reading the statement of St. 
192 



FOUR-LEAF CLOVER 

Paul: "For I have learned, in whatever state I am, 

therewith to be content." Or, possibly, he may have 

been thinking of the lines of Paul Laurence Dunbar, 

"Sometimes the sun, unkindly hot, 
My garden makes a desert spot; 
Sometimes the blight upon the tree 
Takes all my fruit away from me; 
And then with throes of bitter pain 
Rebellious passions rise and swell — 
But life is more than fruit or grain, 
And so I sing, and all is well." 

I am plebeian enough to be fond of milk and crackers 
as a luncheon; but I have just a dash of the patrician 
in my make-up and prefer the milk unskimmed. 
Sometimes, I find that the cream has been devoted 
to other, if not higher, uses and that my crackers 
must associate perforce with milk of cerulean hue. 
Such a situation is a severe test of character, and I 
am hoping that at such junctures along life's high- 
way I may find some support in the philosophy of 
Mr. van Dyke. 

I suspect that he is trying to make me understand 
that happiness is subjective rather than objective — 
that happiness depends not upon what we have, but 
upon what we do with what we have. I couldn't 
be an anarchist if I'd try. I don't grudge the mil- 
lionaire his turtle soup and caviar. But I do feel 
a bit sorry for him that he does not know what a 
193 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

royal feast crackers and unskimmed milk afford. 
If the king and the anarchist would but join me in 
such a feast I think the king would soon forget his 
crown and the anarchist his plots, and we'd be just 
three good fellows together, living at the very summit 
of life and wishing that all men could be as happy 
as we. 

The next rule is a condensed moral code: "You 
shall seek that which you desire only by such means 
as are fair and lawful, and this will leave you without 
bitterness toward men or shame before God." No 
one could possibly dissent from this rule, unless it 
might be a burglar. I know the grocer makes a profit 
on the things I buy from him, and I am glad he does. 
Otherwise, he would have to close his grocery and 
that would inconvenience me greatly. He thanks 
me when I pay him, but I feel that I ought to thank 
him for supplying my needs, for having his goods 
arranged so invitingly, and for waiting upon me so 
promptly and so politely. I can't really see how any 
customer can feel any bitterness toward him. He 
gives full weight, tells the exact truth as to the quality 
of the goods, and in all things is fair and lawful. I 
have no quarrel with him and cannot understand 
why others should, unless they are less fair, lawful, 
and agreeable than the grocer himself. I suspect 
that the grocer and the butcher take on the color of 
194 



FOUR-LEAF CLOVER 

the glasses we happen to be wearing, and that Mr. 
van Dyke is admonishing us to wear clear glasses 
and to keep them clean. 

The third rule needs to be read at least twice if 
not oftener: "You shall take pleasure in the time 
while you are seeking, even though you obtain not 
immediately that which you seek; for the purpose of 
a journey is not only to arrive at the goal, but also 
to find enjoyment by the way." I have seen people 
rushmg along in automobiles at the mad rate of thirty 
or forty miles an hour, missing altogether the mil- 
lion-dollar scenery along the way, in their haste to 
get to the end of their journey, where a five-cent bag 
of peanuts awaited them. Had I been riding in an 
automobile through the streets of Tacoma I might 
not have seen that glorious cluster of five beautiful 
roses on a single branch in that attractive lawn. Be- 
cause of them I always think of Tacoma as the city 
of roses, for I stopped to look at them. I have quite 
forgotten the objective pouit of my stroll; I recollect 
the roses. When we were riding out from Florence 
on a tram-car to see the ancient Fiesole I plucked a 
branch from an olive-tree from the platform of the 
car. On that branch were at least a dozen young 
olives, the first I had ever seen. I have but the haziest 
recollection of the old theatre and the subterranean 
passages where Catiline and his crowd had their 
195 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

rendezvous; but I do recall that olive branch most 
distinctly. I cannot improve upon Doctor van Dyke's 
statement of the rule, but I can interpret it in terms 
of my own experiences by way of verifying it. I am 
sure he has it right. 

The fourth rule is worthy of meditation and prayer: 
"When you attam that which you have desired, you 
shall think more of the kindness of your fortune than 
of the greatness of your skill. This will make you 
grateful and ready to share with others that which 
Providence hath bestowed upon you; and truly this 
is both reasonable and profitable, for it is but little 
that any of us would catch in this world were not 
our luck better than our deserts." I shall omit the 
lesson in arithmetic to-morrow and have, instead, a 
lesson in life and living, using these four rules as the 
basis of our lesson. My boys and girls are to have 
many years of life, I hope, and I'd lilve to help them 
to a right start if I can. Some of my many mistakes 
might have been avoided if my teachers had given 
me some lessons in the art of living, for it is an art 
and must be learned. These rules would have helped, 
could I have known them. I am glad to know that 
my pupils have faith in me. When I pointed out a 
nettle to them one day, they avoided it; when I 
showed them a mushroom that is edible, they ac- 
cepted the statement without question. So I'll see 
196 



FOUR-LEAF CLOVER 

what I can do for them to-morrow with these four 
rules. Then, if we have time, we shall learn the lines 
of Mrs. Higginson: 

" I know a place where the sun is like gold, 
And the cherry blooms burst with snow, 
And down underneath is the loveliest nook, 
Where the four-leaf clovers grow. 

One leaf is for hope, and one is for faith, 

And one is for love, you know, 
And God put another in for luck — 

If you search, you will find where they grow. 

But you must have hope, and you must have faith, 
You must love and be strong — and so, 

If you work, if you wait, you will find the place 
Where the four-leaf clovers grow." 



197 



CHAPTER XXXI 

MOUNTAIN-CLIMBING 

l\/rOUNTAIN-CLIMBING is rare sport. And it 
•^^■^ is sport if only one has the courage to do it. 
We had gone to the top of Vesuvius on the funicular 
railway; but one man decided to make the climb. 
We forgot the volcano in our admiration of the climber. 
Foot by foot he made his way zigzagging this way and 
that, slipping, falling, and struggling till at last he 
reached the summit. Then, fifty throats poured forth 
a lusty cheer to do him honor. He was not good to 
look at, for his clothing was crumpled and soiled, 
the veins stood out on his neck, his hair was tousled, 
his face was red and streaming with sweat; yet, for 
all that, we cheered him and meant it, too. He ac- 
knowledged our applause in an honest, simple way, 
and then disappeared in the crowd. He was not 
posing as a heroic figure, but was just an honest moun- 
tain-climber who accepted the challenge of the moun- 
tain and won. In our cheering we did just what the 
world does: we gave the laurel wreath to the man who 
wins in a test of courage. 
I think "Excelsior" is pretty good stuff in the way 
198 



MOUNTAIN-CLIMBING 

of depicting mountain-climbing, and I always want 
to cheer that young chap as he fights his way toward 
the top. He could have stopped down there in the 
valley, where everything was snug and comfortable, 
but he chose tb climb so as to have a look around. 
I thought of him one day at Scheidegg. There we 
were, nearly a mile and a half above sea-level, shiver- 
ing in the midst of ice and snow in mid-July, but we 
had a look around that made us glad in spite of the 
cold. As Vkgil says: "It will be pleasmg to remember 
these things hereafter." I have often noticed that the 
old soldiers seem to recall the hardest marches, the 
most severe battles, and the greatest privations more 
vividly than their every-day experiences. 

So the mountam-climbing that I have been doing 
with my boys and girls stands out like a cameo in 
my retrospective view. Sometimes we looked back 
toward the valley, and it seemed so peaceful and 
beautiful that it caused the mountain before us to 
seem ominous. At such times, when courage seemed 
to be oozing, we needed to reinforce one another with 
words of cheer. The steep places seemed perilously 
rough at times, and I could hear a stifled sob some- 
where in my little company. At such times I would 
urge myself along at a more rapid pace, that I might 
reach a higher level and call out to them in heartening 
tones to hiu-ry on up to our resting-place. We would 
199 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

often sing a bit in the midst of our resting, and when 
the sob had been changed to a laugh I felt that life 
was well worth while. 

As we toiled upward I was ever on the lookout for 
a patch of sunlight in the midst of the shadows that 
it might'lure them on. And it never failed. Like magic 
that sun-spot always quickened their pace, and they 
often hailed it with a shout. They would even race 
toward that sunny place, their weariness all gone. 
When a bird sang we always stopped to listen; and 
the song acted upon them as the music of a band 
acts upon drooping soldiers. On the next stage of 
the journey their eyes sparkled, and their step was 
more elastic. When one stumbled and fell, we helped 
him to his feet and praised his effort, wholly ignoring 
the fall. Sometimes one would become discouraged 
and would want to drop out of the company and re- 
turn home. When this happened, we would gather 
about him and tell him how good it was to have him 
with us, how he helped us on, and how sorry we 
should be to have him absent when we reached the 
top. When he decided to keep on with us, we gave 
a mighty cheer and then went whistling on our up- 
ward way. 

We constantly vied with one another in discover- 
ing chaste bits of scenery along the way, and we 
were ever too generous to withhold praise or to ap- 
propriate to ourselves the credit that belonged to 
200 



MOUNTAIN-CLIMBING 

another. If one found the nest of a bird hidden away 
in the foUage, we all stopped in admiration. When 
another discovered a spring gushing out from beneath 
the rocks, we all refreshed ourselves with the Umpid 
water and poured out our thanks to the discoverer. 
When a rare flower was found, we took time to examine 
it minutely till we all felt joy in the flower and in the 
finder. To us nothing was ever small or negligible 
that any one of our company discovered. If one 
started a song we all joined in heartily as if we had 
been waiting for that one to lead us in the singing. 
Thus each one, according to his gifts and inclinations, 
became a leader on one or another of the enterprises 
connected with our journey. 

So, in time, it seemed to us that the big tree came 
to meet us in order to give its kindly shade for our 
comfort; that the bird poured forth its song as a special 
gift to us to give us new courage; that the flower met 
us at the right time and place to smile its beauty into 
our lives; that each stream laughed its way to our 
feet to quench our thirst, and to share with us its 
coolness; that the mossy bank gave us a special in- 
vitation to enjoy its hospitahty; that the cloud had 
heard our wishes and came to shield us from the sun, 
and that the path came forth from among the thickets 
to guide us on our way. Because we were winning, 
all nature seemed to be cheering us on as the people 
cheered the man at Vesuvius. 
201 



REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER 

Having reached the summit, we sat together in 
eloquent silence. We had toiled, and struggled, and 
suffered together, and so had learned to think and 
feel in unison. Our spirits had become fused in a 
common purpose, and we could sit in silence and not 
be abashed. We had become honest with our sur- 
roundings, honest with one another, and honest with 
ourselves, and so could smile at mere conventions 
and find joy in one another without words. We had 
encountered honest difficulties — rocks, trees, streams, 
sloughs, tangles, sand, and sun, and had overcome 
them by honest effort and so had achieved honesty. 
We had met and overcome big things, too, and in 
doing so had grown big. No longer did our hearts 
flutter in the presence of little things, for we had 
won poise and serenity. 

The fogs had been banished from our minds; our 
sight had become clear; our spirits had been en- 
larged; our courage had been made strong, and our 
faith was lifted up. A new horizon opened up before 
us that stretched on and on and made us know that 
life is a big thmg. The sky became our companion 
with all its myriad stars; the sea became our neighbor 
with all the life it holds, and the landscape became 
our dooryard, with all its varied beauty and grandeur. 
The ships upon the sea and the trains upon the land 
became our messengers of service. The wires and the 
202 



MOUNTAIN-CLIMBING 

air sped our thoughts abroad and linked us to the 
world. We looked straight into the faces of the big 
elemental things of life and were not afraid. 

When we came back among our own people, they 
seemed to know that some change had taken place 
and loved us all the more. They came to us for coun- 
sel and comfort, paying silent tribute to the wisdom 
that had come to us from the mountain. They looked 
upon us not as superiors, but as larger equals. We 
had learned another language, but had not forgotten 
theirs. We nestled down in their affections and told 
them of our mountain, and they were glad. 

And now I sit before the fire and watch the pic- 
tures in the flickering flames. In my reverie I see my 
boys and girls, companions in the mountam-climbing, 
going upon their appointed ways. I see them healing 
and comforting the sick, relieving distress, minister- 
ing to the needy, and supplanting darkness with light. 
I see them in their efforts to make the world better 
and more beautiful, and life more blessed. I see them 
brmging hope and courage and cheer mto many 
lives. They are bringing the spirit of the mountain 
down into the valley, and men rejoice. Seeing them 
thus engaged, and hearing them singing as they go, 
I can but smile and smile. 



203 



